Dragon2
by Kitsune Hanyou 245
Summary: drag


-/-/-/-/-/-

The inside of the train was, Hermione mused as she seated herself, just as old-fashioned as it's exterior. It was quite unlike the modern trains she'd travelled on a few times, mostly on school trips; unlike the open insides with rows of pairs of seats down each side, it had a corridor along one side and little six-seat compartments all along. Everything was polished instead of grubby plastic, the window had little slide-down panels at the top, and there was an angled grille along the side of the compartment below the window through which she could feel warmth.

She, Harry and Suze had seated themselves in the first empty compartment they came to; the front of the train seemed to be occupied entirely by a lot older kids, probably in their last year or so at Hogwarts, with the kids getting younger as you went back.

As Harry, fed up by her struggling, humped her school trunk onto the overhead luggage rack – all made out of old-fashioned-looking metal – she heard someone slamming a door just back a bit down the train; a man in a smart uniform walked past on the platform.

"Heya!" said a cheerful boy's voice. "Everything else is full, mind if I sit here?"

"Sure, c'mon in." Harry said.

Stopping peering after the guard, Hermione looked at the new occupant of the room; a red-haired boy about her age, dressed in a rather threadbare check shirt, baggy corduroy jacket and patched-kneed denim jeans, dragging a trunk.

"Thanks," the boy said, humping his trunk up onto the rack with startling ease, "I'm Ron, Ron Weasley."

""I'm Harry," Harry said, immediately and obviously enthusiastic, "This is Hermione and this is Suze, she's with me."

"Hi." Hermione said.

"Well met." Suza said. She, being the wrong shape for the seats, had settled herself in the middle of the floor.

"Wow," the ginger boy mused, scratching his head once he'd flopped into a seat, "I guess they weren't joking when they said centaurs were okay, I thought it was the twins playing silly buggers."

"Well actually that's coz of me, I said I weren't gonna go if Suze couldn't come-with and Mr Dumbledore said he couldn't be having with that so, well, Mr Flitwick says he twisted some arms but that doesn't sound like something Mr Dumbledore would do so I guess it's gotta be one of those saying thingies and anyway that's why they added centaurs to the list, I mean Mrs McGonagall says there's more allowed than what's written down, she says rats and hamsters and stuff are okay too and she says one kid once was allowed to have a chicken but they added centaurs so there weren't gonna be no arguments."

"Yeah, I sorta know that," Ron said, producing a decidedly mangy half-bald old rodent that had been in his pocket, "Because Scabbers wasn't against the rules or nothing when Percy had him."

"Huh, that's weird." Harry said. "Hey, is that some sorta magic rat or something? It's just it don't smell completely of rat."

"I don't think so." Ron said, giving the rat a glum look before stuffing it back in his pocket. "All he does is eat, sleep and, you know, widdle."

"Oh." Harry said, scratching his head. "I guess it picked up your-pocket smell."

"I had a bath this morning and my clothes came right out the washing." Ron sounded a bit defensive about that.

"Aw, that wasn't what I meant." Harry told him, waving it off. "You had bacon and eggs for breakfast, didn't you? And I think pork sausage."

"Well yeah, how'd you figure that out?" Ron asked, dubiously checking the front of his shirt.

"Because I got a really really good nose." Harry said, scratching his head. "I can smell the last few things someone ate for a few hours after they ate it and everything smells of something, like you smell like person who had fried grub for breakfast and Hermione smells like person who uses lemon-scented soap for their washing and Suze smells of person and horse and gun smoke and this carriage smells like linseed oil and warm wood and the engine smells like axle grease and coal smoke and hot metal and the air round here smells like exhaust pipe and dead pigeon and I guess I smell like a Harry what slept in and didn't have time for a bath this morning."

"... oh." Ron said. "Huh, that's gotta be pretty awesome."

"Yeah, sometimes it's real good, like when you're on the moors and you can smell all the plants and where there's rabbits and deer and sheep and stuff thought the deer poo kinda pongs and then there's when the wind's coming off the sea and you can smell the salt and seaweed and maybe a bit of engine from fishing boats or the trains. Mallaig's nice, it all sorta smells of kipper and fishing boats when there ain't too many tourists around but the seagull poo can get a bit much. London stinks though, I think it's because there's way too many people what ain't washed and all them exhaust pipes and jet planes and someone else's rotten kebab in the gutter and all that chewing gum and dog poo and things what died and went manky and all them stinky pigeons."

"Harry, you're blathering again." Suze pointed out, as soon as the overexcited boy paused for breath.

Harry stopped halfway through opening his mouth, considered that for a moment, looked highly embarrassed, drew several deep breaths, and sat back down, causing Hermione to realise she couldn't remember at what point in the prior burbling he'd stood up and started trying to pace around the somewhat crowded-by-centaur compartment.

"... sorry." he said. "I, uh, kinda tend to blather when I get worked up about stuff."

"... I'd noticed." Hermione said.

"Er, yeah." Ron mused, scratching his head. "Hey, what Houses d'you reckon you'll be in?"

"I'm hoping for House Gryffindor!" Hermione declared. "I read all about the Houses of Hogwarts in 'Hogwarts: A History' and it sounds best!"

"Well, my friend Mr Snape says there aren't any good houses really." Harry said, frowning. "I mean, he says Gryffindors are mostly blood-crazed dolts who don't know how to identify a fight they can't win, and Hufflepuffs are mostly halfwitted dunderheads who likely don't know how to tie their own shoelaces, and Slytherins are mostly degenerate sophisticates who can't get over some pre-Atlantean foolishness about genetics, and Ravenclaws are mostly ivory-tower intellectual snobs who can't tell the difference between theory and practise, but Mr Snape's kinda snarky like that."

"... oh." Hermione said.

"Well just so long as I don't end up in Slytherin I'll be okay." Ron chirped up. "Mum says there ain't a wizard who went bad didn't come from Slytherin and they're all slimy gits. And everyone knows Gryffindor is best because they're all heroes like Dumbledore and Harry Potter."

Harry looked at him for a moment, the started reeling off a long list of names beginning with 'Roderick of Fife' and ending up with 'Sirius Black'.

"... huh?" Ron asked.

"Well, those are all the Gryffindors what were into dark artity stuff and murdering I can think of." Harry said, scratching his head. "And, y'know, Mr Dumbledore were in Slytherin, and Harry Potter ain't been sorted yet so who knows where he's gonna be, so I guess your mum's either dumb or makin' stuff up, and makin' that sort of stuff up is, yeah, pretty dumb – I mean, there's already a billion and one stupid reasons to look down on people so why make up another one because of what a hat said to 'em?"

"... uh." Ron said. "... what? HEY! Mum's not dumb! You take that back!"

"Well in that case she's makin' stuff up and that's dumb." Harry stated, crossing his arms and glaring through his fringe at Ron. "And people who do dumb stuff are normally dumb, and dumb people are annoying."

With an aggravated cry of, "I don't have to listen to this rubbish!" the ginger one beat a hasty retreat, very nearly stepping on Suze's tail as he went.

"Yup," Harry said, with a faintly aggravated shake of his head, "Dumb."

"That was pretty rude, Harry." Hermione said.

"Mr Snape says being rude to people who're rude to you is perfectly fair play so long as they're not goblins or teachers because being impolite to goblins is bad for your financial status and being impolite to teachers is bad for your academic performance." Harry said with a shrug. "And I don't like people assuming dumb stuff about me, it takes loads more than just not being dead to be hero-y, if you ain't never had a rank on your name you ain't a hero unless you've gotten something like Vee See on your name."

"Vee See... rank... wait, what, you mean you're THAT Harry Potter? That's what that weird Ollivander man meant about wands and scars! You mean your wand is a carbon-copy of You-Know-Who's wand!"

"Well if you mean the one that Mouldy-whatsisface twerp bounced a spell off the face of then yeah, that's me, and yeah, I guess that's what Mr Dumbledore's friend Mr Ollivander meant, and yeah, apparently Mouldy-whatisface's wand had a feather in out off the bum of the same phoenix as my wand's in-it feather came from and that phoenix is Mr Dumbledore's friend Fawkes who I don't know proper yet and I'm not sure if that's important yet. But, y'know, the only way I'm sure I was there when that Mouldy-whatsisface went squish is because Mr Hagrid – he's really cool, you'll like him – says so and he's real bad at lies and he found me in what was left of Mum and Dad's house and there was a squished Mouldy-whatsisface in my bedroom and I had blood all over my head and my mum was dead on the floor but I don't remember any of that stuff so I can't really say what happened and how'd people know he bounced a Killity Curse thingy off my face anyway, I mean me and Mouldy-whatsisface were the only not-dead people there until Mouldy-whatsisface splatted so how'd they work that stuff out, for all I know my mum coulda jumped in the way and killed him back, I mean sometimes when I usta get bad dreams I'd see this sorta green light coming for me and this really crazy voice laughing and I can't remember anything else and there weren't anyone else there so it's kinda weird that everyone assumes that Mouldy-whatsisface creep bounced a Killity Curse thingy off me."

"Harry, blathering."

"... aw drat."

Announced by the twin-tone 'Ba-Bip'(1) of it's horn, a diesel-engined freight train thundered past in the opposite direction – first the heavy growl of the locomotive, then the slam-slam-slam of air being buffeted between wagons and carriages – causing the entire Hogwarts Express to shake and rather nicely punctuating their conversation.

"You know, it says how they worked out what happened in 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'." Hermione said. "It says that they used a Prior Incantum on You-Know-Who's wand and it came up as the Killing Curse having been cast as the three most recent spells, and it also says that the Killing Curse leaves a distinctive trace of dark magic on the victim, and you had that trace."

"Yeah I know, but the Killity Curse thing leaves that stain stuff on everything around it when it goes off to the point that it'd be enough for my mum to get hit with it to leave it on me and anyway all the spells outta that Mouldy-whatsisface guy's wand for as far back as that Prior Incantum thingy can go – and Mr Flitwick says that's seven – were Killity Curses and if it's more than one you can't tell how many Killity Curses have gone off someplace because they all sorta smear together. And anyway, don't believe stuff you read outta 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' too quick, it says stupid stuff what ain't real about me." He scratched his head. "I mean, I know that's what the government says happened, but governments are governments. Being stupid is what governments are there for."

"You should respect the government!"

"Respect Maggie Thatcher? Ain't you never heard of miners' riots an' poll tax?"

"... oh. Yeah, I guess..."

"See? Governments are just governments, they weren't there and they don't know what's going on and most of the time the people running them are the sort of people who want to run a government because they get an erection when they boot people around, at least Mr Snape says so and I guess he'd know even though I still ain't sure what that means and nobody'll explain because they say I ain't old enough if I don't already know, which is real dumb because how're you gonna know stuff if there ain't nobody's explained it? And, y'know, they say that Mouldy-whatsisface guy's wand was in it's holster when they found it so whatever happened I'm pretty sure he wasn't pointing it at me and I'm not sure if they checked it out enough since it got nicked like two days after they found it and nobody ever saw it again, if I ever work out who's got it I'm gonna nick it back because I reckon any weapon someone tried to slay me with is worth keeping."

Hermione stared blankly at him.

"... Harry, what do you think happened?"

"Well I dunno. Whatever happened it left that dark magic stuff all over the place, left a bleeding bit in my face shaped like a lightning bolt, made my mum dead, blew the wall off my room, and made that Mouldy-whatsisface guy go splat, and that's about all I'm sure about. I know I didn't do nothing, what'd a little kid be able to do if he's got a Mouldy-whatsisface screaming 'I'm gonna make you a dead little kid' in his face? I don't think that Mouldy-whatsisface guy did extra stuff to make himself go splat because, what kind of rampaging dunderhead makes himself go splat on purpose? So I guess Mum did something but I dunno what and all the books I could find came up with all sorts of implausiable ideas for how it could be something special about my face. I mean, okay, my face is obviously special since it's my face but not in the making Mouldy-whastisnames go splat when they Killity Curse kind of special."

"It's pronounced 'Voldemort', Harry."

"I know that, but people seem to tend to go twitch when someone says 'Voldemort' and they do that trying-not-to-laugh snort when I say 'Mouldy-whatsisface' and I don't much like making people go twitch and I'm not gonna say 'you-know-who' because how am I gonna be sure if the person I'm talking to knows who? What if there ain't nobody's ever told 'em? And besides, someone who couldn't even Killity Curse a little kid proper is obviously a complete waste of skin and don't deserve any respect so I'm gonna keep calling that popinjay something that makes people snigger."

"He scared a lot of people really badly, Harry."

"Hermione, I'm gonna let you in on a big secret. Most people are stupid and I mean so stupid I'm surprised they don't need a map to wipe their bums. People who're scared of a twit who couldn't properly Killity Curse a little kid are obviously imbeciles because that twit couldn't properly Killity Curse a little kid and who's gonna be scared of someone who goes splat when they try to Killity Curse a little kid?"

"... I thought you said he didn't try to hit you with the Killing Curse?"

"Well I dunno!" Harry complained, frustratedly throwing his arms up in the air. "I mean everyone seems to think so and I don't remember that stuff, I mean all I'm saying is maybe it wasn't that Killity Curse thingy but people thinking it was is probably a good thing since it maybe means less people are just gonna poo their pants and fall over when someone yells Arabia Carnival!"

"That's 'Avada Kedavara', Harry." Hermione said, pretty certain she'd got the pronunciation right – she'd read it in 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts'.

"And I know that too, Arabia Carnival is me pulling legs and making people snigger same as when I say Mouldy-whatsisface, it's because not being scared of stuff is the first part of working out how you're gonna go stomp all over the stuff you're not letting scare you. And, hey, if I'm wrong and that Mouldy-whatsisface guy did bounce Killity Curses off my face that means Killity Curses bounce off my face so I don't gotta be scared of 'em anyway, and if I'm right and it was something even weirder and scarier than Killity Curses that bounced off my face that means stuff that makes Killity Curses look like tickling hexes bounces off my face so I don't gotta be scared of Killity Curses anyway because my head is far too awesome for that."

Here Hermione momentarily wondered whether the right term was 'overinflated', then chided herself for being unnecessarily mean.

"So," Harry continued rabbiting on, "Whichever way it is I'm gonna be okay so long as I don't get cocky because Sergeant-Major Hooktalon says getting cocky is a good way to get dead and I don't wanna get dead but then I guess the only people who do got it even worse than I did before, uh, before that whole thing with standity-stone thingies going all glowy and stuff, and I'm glad I've never been onea 'em because Sergeant-Major Hooktalon says suicide is a cowards way out and I ain't no coward!"

"Harry, blathering." Suze remarked.

"... drat."

"What was that you were saying about 'vee see' and ranks earlier?" Hermione asked, deciding she wanted the subject changed until she'd had time for some research about the prior one.

"What, the stuff it takes to be heroes, right?" Harry checked. He was now walking a knut coin back and forth across his knuckles.

"Yeah, that."

"Well I was talkin' soldiers and stuff." Harry said, flicking the coin up in the air then catching it before it could fall on the floor. "I've been reading a lot of stuff about wars and history and stuff lately and I'm pretty sure hero-ing is part of being a soldier especially if they've gotten medals and stuff, well, unless they're Nazis or Soviets or some-such. All the history books are way clearer about that than any of the stuff I've managed to find about dragons, that stuff's kinda hard to work out and everyone seems to get bits wrong." He was now balancing the coin on the end of one finger; the train proceeded to dislodge it by hitting an especially bumpy section of track.

Hermione considered that while Harry was recovering his coin. "I don't know, Harry. I mean, all that killing and, you know, bombs... it just can't be good."

"Well that's all well and good when you ain't got this great big enormous giant spider or something charging down on you and wanting to eat your face." Harry said with a shrug. "Then if you ain't as awesome as me you're gonna be real glad if you've got a well-tuned Ess Em Ell Ee or an Ess Ell Arr or something else what's good at making holes in stuff. Or what if some barking mad little guy with a stupid moustache went I'm gonna invade Poland and you're next?" (1) He held the bronze coin up at eye level and contemplated it for a long moment. "Then, well, either you gotta really do for anything that tries to get you or you're gonna get proper squished," There was a loud wrenching sound as he crushed the coin between his fingers, "Like that."

"It would be nice if we lived in a world where bad things only happened to bad people, but we do not." Suze chirped up, giving Hermione an intense side-on look. "The acromantulas have treated my kin as prey, as a tasty delicacy, for longer than I have been alive; are you saying that we should allow them to devour us because they are thinking beings? Do not try to tell me we should attempt to talk to them; that attempt was made in a time when I was but a pleasant thought in Father's head and it is quite difficult to talk reason into any being that simply will. Not. Listen."

"Weren't my centaur friends started the fire and it weren't me neither." Harry said, flicking the mangled coin onto the floor. "But I'm sure gonna fight it 'coz there ain't nobody messes with my friends. There's this real good saying Master-Sergeant Griphook told me a while back; 'let he who would have peace prepare for war'. I reckon it makes sense 'coz if you're ready for all sorts of bad stuff to happen then it's way likelier you and your friends are gonna still be alive when it's all over."

"... I guess." Hermione muttered.

"That's what soldiers are for, Hermione." Harry solemnly told her. "That's what they do, it's their job to save the world."

Hermione paused, digesting that, then frowned and picked what was left of the coin up.

It was crushed to the point of looking like a small piece of Playdoh someone had squeezed in their fist.

"... how strong are you, Harry?" she asked.

"Way stronger'n I look." Harry said, shrugging cheerily.

"He can pick me up without strain." Suze helpfully added, fondly ruffling Harry's great mop of scruffy black hair.

Looking from pint-sized boy to sizeable centaur and back, Hermione found that somewhat hard to believe, so she said so.

"... I find that somewhat hard to believe."

Harry shrugged, not at all put out, while Suze stifled a snort and wryly shook her head.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked her.

"I apologise, it's merely that Harry seems to have that effect on people. The legend and the reality are so widely separated that few know how to respond."

"... oh." Hermione said, and they lapsed into silence for a while, Harry playing with another coin and Hermione distractedly contemplating everything she'd just heard.

"... Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah Hermione?"

"What was that you said about something a hat says to someone?"

"Well," Harry said, "It's supposed to be a big secret because someone ages back thought keeping everyone guessing was funny, but how first-years are sorted is they get a magic hat called Donald sat on their head and he looks in their brain and has a talk to them in their minds and figures out what house they're gonna be in. I tried to get him to tell me how he works that stuff out, but he just laughed and said he'll tell me if I ever need to know."

-/-/-/-/-/-

It was nearing the last light of day when 45401 came pounding her way down the glen towards Hogsmeade station, the beat of her exhaust hammering off mountains and echoing across the moors, the elderly carriages of the Hogwarts Express briskly clattering across the well-beaten metals of the West Highland Line behind her as Jim Coates closed her regulator and eased her brakes on; steam hissed from glands as she drew to a stately halt in the little-used branch station that marked the sole ingress of the so-called 'muggle world' into the village of Hogsmeade across the loch from Hogwarts, and she sat, simmering, as her passengers poured from the coaches.

She was a notorious locomotive amongst the railway enthusiasts of Britain; her Midland Railway-style livery had drawn a lot of critical remark, but her owners (an oddly hard-to-contact conglomerate known as Hogs Haulage PLC) had so far proved unavailable for comment, and had failed to return her to her proper livery despite myriad scathing letters from fans and old hands of the London Midland and Scottish.

Her haunts were hard to pin down too. A lot of enthusiasts had tried to find a way to book a ride on the daily workings undertaken by Hogs Haulage from the far north-west to London and back without success; whatever the run they hauled those train for it was decidedly private indeed, as was the exact location their locomotives were stabled and just why their owners had seen fit to paint them in such an unprototypical(3) livery.

Tut, tut!

At least 45401 (and her stablemates) had been saved from the cutter's torch. The number of fine old locomotives that had dwindled to nothing in the scrap-lines was all too numerous; for every loco that reached preservation, dozens had been met with the ignominious fate of being cut up for scrap.

Some had been less than twenty years old when they were withdrawn – a terrible waste of a perfectly good locomotive.

Most of the people who kept a weather eye out for the Hogs Haulage trains would have been quite scathing and disbelieving if told what the purpose of their trips was – but not all. One tiny handful knew what those trains stood for.

And the majority of that handful could use magic.

To the vast majority of her passengers, 45401 was beneath notice; just the engine that had hauled the Hogwarts Express today, nothing special.

To the few, she was a slice of history in carefully-preserved steel and, in her time, she'd transported her fair share of fellow slices of history; the Boy-Who-Lived was merely the latest on that list.

Thirty feet from her smokebox and completely oblivious to the significance of the simmering sixty-some year old locomotive, Rubeus Hagrid was busy bellowing, "Firs' years this way, firs' years this way!" at the top of his lungs.

To him, she was just a big old lump of red-and-black metal.

Her crew were already checking her over in preparation to return her to her place in the Hogsmeade motive power depot as the first year students boarded the boats at the nearby jetty; Mac unfastening her couplers as Jim went round seeing that the guard, Ivor McIver, had the coaches prepared for the shunter – an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 saddle tank, formerly property of a Speyside whiskey distillery – to haul them back to the carriage sheds for cleaning and for the Hogwarts house elves to transport the children's luggage up to the castle. The children always made a heck of a mess in the train; the small contingent of Hogs Haulage house elves always tut-tutted about the drifts of sweetie wrappers, soft drinks bottles, used chewing gum, and other such grot.

By the time Hagrid was calling for the first years to mind their heads as they passed under the low entryway to the tunnel that led to the Hogwarts castle docks – more normally used to transport the food those students would eat – Jim was backing 45401 past the coaches, towards the points that led to the turntable and locomotive shed; as the students filed into the Great Hall, they were seeing that their drake-dog was fed and settled in the kennels, and by the time the Sorting began they were leaving the shed on their way down to the Hogs Head Inn and a well-earned pint of stout.

-/-/-/-/-/-

Out of all the first-year students, only one knew exactly what to expect, that one being Harry Potter who was, being Harry, far too enormously excited to remain coherent at this point; Hermione found herself wanting to put her hands on his head to stop him bouncing as they listened to the scruffy old magical hat he'd earlier claimed was named Donald singing some sort of somewhat raucous doggerel. It was all pretty impressive but having an outrageously strong and hyperactive small boy fidgeting, giggling and pointing things out beside you made for a bit of an unneeded distraction.

The sorting proceeded alphabetically by surname, and Harry amused himself by spotting kids he recognised as their turns came up; first in that category was that odd girl Hannah Abbot he'd met in Diagon Alley one time and then her friend Susan Bones, both of them ending up in Hufflepuff, then Hermione ended up in Gryffindor which was pretty good since that was what she'd said she wanted to do, then that mad kid Draco whatsisname who'd nearly gotten his head sat on for being dumb the time they'd run into each other in Hogsmeade went to Slytherin which Mr Snape probably wasn't going to be very happy about, and then Mrs McGonagall said "Potter, Harry." and Harry came happily bouncing over to the hot seat enjoying his audience and the bated breath all over the room. Maybe he didn't look like a dragon right now but he was a dragon and dragons are supposed to be impressive and that means he needed all the awe he could get.

-/-/-/-/-/-

'Ah, hello again Harry, it isn't often I get to talk to someone more than once. Doing okay there, lad?'

'Yeah Mr Donald, I'm doing good.'

'Glad to hear it. Hmm, so where shall I put you then?'

'Well, I dunno really, I mean, Mr Snape says there aren't any good houses really and I guess I'm not really bothered since it isn't a part of where I'll be living but I guess you already know that I mean Mrs McGonagall says you can see everything in someone's head when they're wearing you, huh?'

'Aha, no preference, now that's a fun challenge right there! Hmm, I confess I'd half expected Gryffindor or Slytherin, but neither would suit you at all. You'd do quite well in Ravenclaw but I think you'd lose patience with their cliques before long... aHA! I know just the place for you, lad;'

The next part was bellowed out loud:

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

-/-/-/-/-/-

Up at the staff table, Snape looked faintly surprised and muttered, "Blasted reptile."

Then he stifled a chuckle as he saw the pole-axed looks on the collective faces of House Gryffindor, the startled looks on the collective faces of House Ravenclaw, the quietly-discussing-what-this-meant looks on the collective faces of House Slytherin, and the way House Hufflepuff were collectively yelling and applauding.

It seemed that Harry had, as they'd expected, put a cat among the pigeons from the word go.

-/-/-/-/-/-

After the uproar related to a certain boy-who-didn't-snuff-it becoming a Puff, the sorting proceeded apace; it was followed by a brief bit of doggerel from Dumbledore that led into the arrival feast, whereupon Harry once again gobsmacked everyone in the room by seeming to inhale what amounted to an entire roast cow while enthusiastically chattering away at about a mile a minute at the surrounding swarm of Puffs; this he counted as a great success as he gave the girls he'd ended up sat between (Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot) giggle fits and managed to get the older boy opposite them (who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory) to snort so hard his pumpkin juice came out of his nose.

Once everyone's appetite was sated (aside of course from Harry, who regarded just one cow as a light appetizer and intended to eat enough to feel full when he got back to his lair) Dumbledore made a few announcements about a new member of staff and some rule changes, in particular the bit about the Forbidden Forest;

"The Forbidden Forest is as the name suggests strictly off limits to anyone not accompanied by a member of staff or a registered resident of the Forest. And last but quite definitely not least, there is a hallway on the third floor that is likewise strictly off limits as it contains a certain death for any who venture therein; it is marked, and locked in a way that will require considerable deliberate effort for any student to unlock; I trust that nobody will make the attempt as it would be quite remarkably foolish."

Harry frowned for a moment. Out of everyone in the student body, he alone had a rough idea what was going on with that; a few days before, a fist-sized package had arrived by armoured carrier under the guard of four squads of armed-to-the-teeth goblins led by Hooktalon, and had been handed over to the Hogwarts staff. A full squad of said goblins were now camped out in that passageway, which had been heavily fortified; they'd been instructed to scare off any students, and warn off or if they pushed it machine-gun any non-students who weren't Dumbledore, Hooktalon, Slackhammer, or someone called Nick Flamel. Harry knew this as one of the goblins standing guard down there was Colour Sergeant Griphook, who'd explained he'd be unable to attend Harry's marksmanship lessons until the mission was completed, and had sworn the young dragon to secrecy on the subject.

"Now then, it's time for us all to get some sleep." Dumbledore declared, rising to his feet. "We've a big day in the morning."

And that was that; prefects went round calling the attention of their houses' first year students, leading each house to depart the Great Hall in a disorderly mob.

Once everyone had been directed to their House common rooms, those few first-year students not residing at the castle were shown how to get to the way out; in the Hufflepuff case, this meant Harry and a boy named Zack Smith who lived down in Hogsmeade – and that was about that.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Would anybody," Dumbledore asked, "Care for a lemon drop?"

He and the teaching staff were now in his office and about to begin the final pre-term meeting; everyone of course refused the offer of a lemon drop.

They had one very important thing to resolve that evening;

"Now we must organise class schedules." Dumbledore continued, and there was a round of groaning – not one of the teachers enjoyed that particular task, thus their habit of putting it off until the absolute last second.

But they all had to admit, it had to be done in time for the students to receive their timetables at breakfast in the morning, and that meant that now was the only time they had left.

So the arguments began. Throughout, there was one distinct peculiarity.

"Severus, Minerva, Fillius, are you all quite sure about having students from all four houses as single classes?" Dumbledore asked, once the not-in-the-know members of staff had departed.

Snape grimaced. "No, Albus, I am not. However, our experiments require more time than otherwise available, so..."

"Aye. We're this far," and McGonagall measured half an inch with her forefinger and thumb, "From finally working out what exactly Harry managed to do to himself at Avebury, and I'm beginning to believe that the sooner we make those final connections the better."

"The magical energy, the 'current' if you like," Flitwick said, "That ran through Mr Potter's body in that moment at Avebury... Albus, the only way in which his transformation could possibly have occurred is if more magic flowed through his body in that second than flows through Hogwarts in a century!"

"It was quite seriously that intense?" Sinestra asked.

"Quite so." Flitwick confirmed. "Aurora, it has proven quite impossible to detect Mr Potter's aura from a range less than fifteen miles for a reason similar to the way one cannot see all of Hogwarts from the front row of Severus's classroom."

"Fifteen miles?" Sinestra boggled. "But, but, but Albus's aura only covers a region a hundred yards across!"

"Precisely." Snape chirped up. "That reptile's aura contains more magic than those of every other living thing in Britain – combined. It is at its core intense enough to alter the laws of nature within his body; how else do you suppose a being weighing more than ten tons yet the size of a young adult Hungarian Horntail is able to fly as easily as a seagull?"

"And I don't like to repeat myself, but his transformation couldn't have happened without a magical charge greater by a few orders of magnitude than any recorded since the anomalous excursions of 1883." McGonagall put in.

"Whatever happened that evening in Avebury," Flitwick took over, "It seems to have involved enough magical energy that, if channelled through a single Reducto, it would have obliterated everything within a hundred and twenty-five miles, bedrock included, in a blast that would make the mightiest of volcanoes seem like a tickling hex – and you all know how inefficient such a rudimentary blasting curse is."

"I see." Dumbledore said. "Yes; uncovering the facts is indeed of the utmost importance. Minerva, Severus, Fillius, if you require any assistance in your research or your teaching, don't hesitate to ask." The old man directed a grim look around the office. "All of you, whatever support you might give them, do not hesitate. The survival of all life in this world, not merely of magical life, might conceivably be in the balance."

There was a round of solemn nodding, and thus it was decided.

-/-/-/-/-/-

Sitting upon Suze's back as she jogged down to the castle, (Yes, jogged. Centaurs most definitely do not trot, canter, or gallop, and take grave exception to any contradictory claims) Harry found himself in a state of high excitement once more.

Yesterday had been interesting, even though him taking the train to Hogwarts had, when it came down to it, been silly; but that wasn't a big deal, like a lot of things that were silly it had been fun.

Today there'd be classes, and Harry was really looking forwards to them. Over the years since he'd left Privet Drive (which now seemed like some sort of an unpleasant dream) his friends from the Hogwarts staff had got him caught up to what most Wizarding-raised students would have learned prior to Hogwarts in matters practical; on theory he was far ahead of his peers, but he wasn't sure how that would hold up in practise and was really looking forwards to finding out.

Waving a cheerful greeting to a small patrol of centaur warriors, they exited the edge of the Forest; another wave to Hagrid, who was mucking out the thestrals' stables as they headed up the lawn, and Harry leaped lightly down from Suze's back as they arrived in the courtyard where Mr Filch was sweeping up assorted litter that'd made it's way in – mostly leaves and the likes from the windy night they'd had, a few sweetie wrappers left by the arriving students, that sort of thing.

Mr Filch was a real sourpuss, but Harry didn't mind. Mr Snape had explained Filch's status as a squib, and how that made life difficult for the small man, so Harry reckoned it made sense that Mr Filch was kinda grumpy; he said a cheerful good morning, disregarded the way Filch grumped, and headed into the castle, catching up with a couple of other non-boarding students, most of whom still got suitably gobsmacked by having a centaur loom over them.

(Centaurs could do a lot of looming. Fully upright, even a relatively small centaur like Suze could look Hagrid straight in the eye.)

He'd already eaten a good deal of breakfast, so what he had at the school meal was just a top-up despite being enough to make Ron Weasley feel inadequate; the important bit was getting his class timetable, and he was absolutely delighted to find that the very first subject of the year was Potions with Professor Snape.

"I've heard this Snape bloke's a right arse." Zack Smith said, dubiously contemplating the timetable.

"He used to be pretty difficult to deal with but he's got a lot better over the last couple of years." one of the upper-year students – a lanky girl with bubblegum pink hair – remarked, looking up from her breakfast.

"Well the important thing with knowing Mr Snape is being able to tell when he's actually angry and when he's growling for the sake of growling." Harry said. "You can tell when he really is angry because he goes even whiter and you can't see he's got lips any more, and he stops using complicated insults and starts shouting."

"... you know him?" another upper-year student, to whom Harry hadn't yet been introduced, asked.

"Yeah, he's onea my business partners and we get on pretty good." Harry said, nodding firmly.

"Must admit I hadn't realised he actually liked anyone." the boy who'd introduced himself as Cedric Diggory mused.

"If Mr Snape doesn't like someone, they really know about it." Harry explained, shrugging. "And if he calls something 'acceptable' or 'tolerable' that's him saying he likes it."

"... I thought he hated my guts." the pink-haired girl said, startled.

"Huh?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm Tonks." she said. "And Snape calls my potions 'acceptable'."

"You're the Tonks who gets worked up about her first name, right?" Harry checked. "Yeah, he said something about you right about when last school year would've been ending, we were talking about how to tell the difference between properly-made and badly-made potions and he used some of yours as examples of how it oughtta be done, he said something about them being good enough to sell and, well, he's pretty particular about what he will and won't sell – I asked and he said that any customer deserves the absolute finest quality."

"... huh."

Harry shrugged.

"Toldja it's hard to figure out what he's thinking."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Having spent a couple of minutes silently striding around the room, Snape stopped in front of the blackboard and whirled round to spend a moment thoughtfully contemplating the class.

"... I confess," he said, "That I am stymied. It is my tradition to, at this time, select the most prominent member of an incoming class of students and demonstrate how little he or she actually knows of the exacting and magnificent art of potions, but at this moment in time our most prominent incoming student is of course Mr Potter and I am aware that his knowledge of potions is acceptable."

He paused while everyone looked at Harry, who didn't know to get uncomfortable or anything; dragons like being admired.

"Thus, Mr Potter, for the next few minutes you will keep your eternally ravenous jaw firmly shut. Is that understood?"

Harry made an enthusiastic 'Uh-huh' noise that didn't involve opening his mouth.

"Good." Snape said. "Now then, might anyone among you – excepting, of course, Mr Potter – be aware of the precise reagent composition of Orihalcum?"

Silence. Well, apart from Harry nodding and grinning with his teeth firmly clenched together.

"Hmm, so none of you are up to date on recent alchemical discoveries... perhaps I should enlighten you. Orihalcum, also known as mage-iron or glass-steel, is a structured phlogistonic nitrate of aluminium, known to muggles as aluminium oxy-nitride. Now, who if anyone might be able to tell me where one might acquire a beozar?"

Hermione Granger's hand shot up.

"Well, young lady?" Snape growled.

"In the belly of a goat, Sir."

"Correct; perhaps there is some hope for you after all. That said, do not call me 'Sir'; I work for a living. The correct term of address is 'Professor Snape'. And might anybody – excepting Miss Granger, who has already begun to prove herself – be aware of the difference between aconite and wolfsbane?"

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence replete with Harry rolling his eyes, and then a chubby dark-haired boy hesitantly raised a hand.

"Yes, Mr Longbottom?"

"Th-there's n-no difference; th-they're the same p-plant."

"Are you quite certain of that, Mr Longbottom? Wouldn't want to embarrass yourself your first day, would you?" There was some tittering from the Slytherin portion of the room, and Longbottom swallowed a couple time.

"I'm s-sure, P-Professor."

"Good; you are, as it so happens, quite correct." Snape swept a glower around the room. "You, you, you, and you! Three days detention each! I will not have cronyism or toadying within this chamber! The preparation of potions is an exacting art, and if you mess it up – which, from that unutterably gormless expression upon your fool faces, you most assuredly will – it can become quite decidedly hazardous! You will all be quiet! You will speak only when given permission! You will pay attention! You will be careful! You will follow instructions religiously! Because, if you fail to do so, you will likely blow yourself sky-high and I. Will. Make. Your. Life. Unutterably. Miserable. DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND ME?"

"Yes, Professor Snape." everyone chorused.

"We shall see. Oh, and by the way? Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom, five points each to House Gryffindor for actually possessing the intelligence to both await permission to answer and for actually possessing a little knowledge of matters alchemical. And Mr Potter, you may now cease to hold your mouth quite so rigidly closed."

He then proceeded to go into a five-minute rant about the preparation of the potion he'd selected for this first class of the year; a potion for the cleaning of metals which, according to Snape, was easy but would, if one messed it up, usually produce a rather loud bang.

Nearly half the class got bangs and got snapped at. Most of the remainder got a sharp nod when Snape checked out their potions; a few got a quiet, "Acceptable" and a handful of points apiece.

Those few were Hermione, Draco Malfoy, and a Slytherin girl named Pansy Parkinson.

One unfortunate – Neville Longbottom – found himself on the receiving end of a string of spells aimed at his cauldron by a Snape whom none but Harry could tell was slightly panicked and was then subject to a sharp five-minute lecture on safety procedures, after his cauldron started to melt.

Snape then proceeded on a rant about what made that potion work, why it worked, how to tell (and cause) the difference between the ones that worked well and the ones that merely worked (it mainly boiled down to how evenly the ingredients were sliced and the lack of any acrid smell) what had gone wrong that turned Neville's attempt into something Snape described as 'corrosive enough to etch glass' (a matter of wrong order of ingredient addition) and what homework he expected; with that done, he dismissed the class, calling Harry to wait back for a brief word.

"What's up, Professor Snape?" Harry asked once the rest of the students had gone.

"Two subjects." Snape said, and pointed at Harry's cauldron. "Although a passable effort, you and I both know that you are capable of better than that."

"... I'm sorry, I guess I kinda got overexcited and got sloppy chopping the spriggan leaves, right?"

"Indeed; kindly be more patient in future."

"I'll do that."

"Good."

"What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?"

"Mr Slackhammer has requested a meeting at our earliest convenience. I have suggested that we visit Gringotts this coming Saturday; will that be acceptable?"

"Yeah, that works for me."

"Good; I shall make the necessary preparations."

"Okay, Mr Snape."

"I shall see you later then, young man."

-/- Possible fragmentation; next scene may be replaced with series of scenes -/-

Following Potions, a simple pattern that tterly mindboggled everyone not a member of the staff rapidly began to emerge, starting in Fillius Flitwick's classroom when, on his first attempt at casting a simple levitation charm, Harry's feather proceeded into the ceiling at several thousand feet per second with a whipcrack like a bullet going overhead; the tip of his wand was left glowing red-hot and smoking a bit.

This pattern continued in the year's first DADA class, when a simple stunning hex more-or-less obliterated the practise target and converted a block in the stone wall behind to sand, causing Quirrel to be utterly intelligible from increased stuttering for a week; it skipped his introductory Care of Magical Creatures lesson, only to continue in Transfiguration (McGonagall privately admitted to her colleagues that she'd never seen anything like it before) and flying lessons, wherein (much to everyone's horror) the broom produced a tremendous TWANG noise and shot forwards like a crossbow bolt out of under Harry's hand, proceeding to bury itself to the bristles in a nearby grassy knoll.

Simply put, Harry was suffering control problems of a degree that Aurora Sinestra declared to be 'Epic'; it didn't take she and Vector long to figure out that Harry was putting more magical energy into each casting than every one of his classmates combined; he was experiencing equal trouble with every class that involved active magic.

To say he was less than impressed with the resulting intense regime of finesse tutoring would be to... well, to lie through one's teeth. Harry being Harry, he took it all in stride and rapidly became quite smug when he got his head around exactly why his magic kept going spectacularly wrong, causing Snape to privately remark to McGonagall that if Harry's head kept swelling it would likely burst; the barely-detectable smile on the acerbic man's face when he said that demonstrated that he was joking, and the Scotswoman just chuckled and shook her head.

By the time Saturday rolled around, a twofold set of rumours were flying around the school, the first around the Boy-Who-Lived's apparent power level (several upper-year students had connected the dots) and the second about why the entire staff (sans Filch) seemed in such high spirits.

-/- Begin definite fragmentation; next scene needs run-in -/-

"Ah, Mr Potter, Mr Snape, welcome, welcome." Slackhammer said, rising to his feet and greeting his business partners with a cordial bow. Despite Harry's best attempts over the years, he'd never managed to get the dapper goblin to be any more personal than 'Mr' on anything even approaching a regular basis.

The broad shark-like grin on Slackhammer's face told both Snape and Harry that the goblin's news was good.

"A seat, gentlemen." Slackhammer continued, gesturing them to the comfortable armchairs that were to be found in his office whenever he was expecting to entertain important guests such as his business partners; Harry knew that because the times Slackhammer hadn't been expecting him the armchairs had been brought in for them. "Would you care for a little refreshment?"

"A small Firewhiskey please, Mr Slackhammer." Snape said.

"I'd like a cup of goblin tea please." Harry added. Goblin tea was strong stuff; it most definitely would not have suited a human's palate, being ferociously acrid and just about hot enough to take the skin off the roof of your mouth, but the young dragon found it to his taste; the flavour reminded him of the lemony bit that was a still-charged car battery.

Slackhammer rang a small bell, and his batman immediately appeared, bowing in response to Slackhammer's polite, "The usual thankyou, Corporal Icefang." before quickly disappearing to see to it.

"Now then, gentlemen," Slackhammer continued; waiting around when you could be discussing business was considered boorish by right-thinking goblins, "I have recently had some quite intriguing possibilities brought to my attention, concerning your analysis of the materials composing Mr Potter's brain and nerves."

"Concerning my examination of Mr Potter's central nervous system?" Snape asked, very surprised. "While the materials involved are quite fascinating in their makeup, I confess I fail to see how they might be applied in practise."

"For an answer to that, Mr Snape, one must look to the world of electronics and computing." Slackhammer told him. "It seems that Mr Potter's nerves are composed of what is referred to as a room-temperature superconductor. And as a member of our company – your esteemed self – was able to decipher how exactly to replicate the given substance and, as it happens, it is cheap and easy to do so... Gentlemen, if you thought the sum we earned from NASA was substantial, you haven't seen a damn thing yet."

Corporal Icefang returned, placing the drinks on the coffee table, and passed them round.

"Thankyou, Corporal Icefang."

"M'pleasure, Mr Vice-Chairman sir." and the other goblin departed once again.

"How might the structure of Mr Potter's nerves be of such value?" Snape asked.

"Severus, the technological potential of a superconductor not merely able to function at room temperature, but at a temperature as hot as molten steel, is simply limitless. I have taken the liberty of patenting the fabrication process in our company's name, and I currently have electronics manufacturers the world over clamouring for use of that technique. And I have had certain technologists of my acquaintance take a look at your analysis of Mr Potter's brain matter, and once again the potential technological applications of that data... Boundless in the region of computing. Tell me, what if anything do you know of the internal function of computers?"

"Very little, I must confess." Snape admitted. "I am aware of their existence, but that is all that I know."

"Well I ain't used one since before I turned into a dragon." Harry said. "They had Commodore C64's at the school I usta go to when I lived at the Dursleys and we used 'em for somea the classes..." He hadn't really thought about all that in ages.

"You lost me at the 'See sixty four' part." Snape muttered.

"And how much do you know of said computer's construction?" Slackhammer intently asked Harry.

"Well not a huge lot, I mean I know they got microchips and stuff in 'em, and I know those are made outta silicone with really really tiny wiring and stuff on them, and I know what transistors are and how really really tiny they can get, and I know what bits and bytes and kilobytes are, but..."

"And that knowledge will suffice here, Mr Potter; if I were to tell you that your brain matter functions much like a vast network of computers formed from transistors manufactured at the molecular scale, well, do you understand what I mean?"

"... wow. Well, I, um, I think so?"

"And if I were to tell you that our as-yet small number of employees believe that they can reproduce that material as a form of processor chip for a computer?"

"... wow. That's be worth a LOT of money, wouldn't it?"

"Am I to understand that these materials would allow us to corner the global market in these 'computers'?" Snape asked, doing a damn good job of correctly pronouncing the unfamiliar word.

"Quite correct, Mr Snape." Slackhammer confirmed. "And that market is worth enough to make a king's ransom seem like the small change one might occasionally notice dropped in the street. Enough that if we are to go ahead with this, barring some unspeakable disaster, everyone within this room will become so phenomenally rich that I guarantee we shall not need to work another day in our lives and nor shall our great-grandchildren, regardless of how long those lives might perhaps be."

"Mr Slackhammer, what sort of money are we talking about?"

-/- Scene continues; need real figures for microchip market in 1991 -/-

-/- Fragmentation; needs scenes to connect. At next Potions lesson... -/-

"Ladies, gentlemen, other beings, welcome back." Snape said.

He then gestured at their readied potions' kits, especially Neville's cauldron.

"It has come to my attention that I have failed to properly impart to you the true hazards that those ingredients upon your desks represent. You may believe me severe, especially considering my given name, but I assure you that I am not demanding of you simply for my amusement."

He paused to let the students work out that he'd just made a joke with himself as the butt; there were some obedient giggles, to which he replied with one cocked eyebrow and a faint smirk.

"In this room, there are many layered charms for the safety of all who prepare potions herein. These charms are here for a vital purpose; potions are universally volatile. Their function depends on reactions that, if incorrectly performed, will almost inevitably have horrific side-effects; that metal-cleaning potion that you prepared this time last week can, with a certain combination of errors, become corrosive enough to etch glass. Within this room, those unwanted side-effects are suppressed and controlled. Mr Longbottom, your attempt would have melted clean through the floor, removing your legs at the knees, if it was not for those safety charms; that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely how deadly a badly-prepared potion can become."

"Frankly, I am severe and exacting as any failure to do so on my part may cost your lives in times to come. I am demanding of you because I must; that is in itself the nature of potions as an art."

"I trust that you all understand this?" There was a round of nodding and 'Yes, Professor Snape' ing. "Good. Today we shall be preparing a potion for the treatment of burns. Note that, if prepared incorrectly, it may explode with sufficient force to drive fragments of cauldron clean through a thick stone wall; I add that, within this room, said detonation would merely blow unpleasantly spicy muck to ceiling height. The primary reaction concerns..." and Snape went into a five-minute rant about reactions and reactivity and precautions for the prevention of things that blow up.

Once again, once the potions were prepared, Hermione and Draco and Pansy got approving nods and points, this time joined by Harry; Neville didn't manage to get his cauldron to explode, but became the target of a lecture about how, due to the addition of ingredients in the incorrect order, his potion would cause a horrific, scarring, rash.

Once he'd then explained how and why the differences between failures, mere successes, and superb performances had occurred (mostly about timing of the addition of ingredients, though the accuracy of ingredient preparation factored into it) how it all worked and what homework he expected, Snape dismissed the class.

"A moment of your time, Miss Granger." he added.

Hermione warily waited as the rest of the class departed; she received puzzled looks from several students, especially Draco Malfoy.

"What is it, Professor Snape?" she asked once they were alone.

"Mr Longbottom needs help, young lady, and your attempts have as yet proved to be of quite acceptable quality." Snape informed her, tapping her cauldron. "I would appreciate it if you were to render Mr Longbottom a little assistance in comprehending my lessons; in future lessons students shall be paired, and I wish you to be paired with Mr Longbottom so that you might prevent any further critical errors on his part."

"Will it impact my grades?" Hermione asked.

"Frankly, young lady, if Mr Longbottom's performance should improve with your instruction I shall assign his improvements as extra credit to your grades. That young man is utterly lacking in certainty of his own ability, and fails to add ingredients in the correct order due I believe to his uncertainty; I believe your acceptable levels of attention to the subject might guide him onto a path that shall not result in him blowing himself to pieces."

"Okay, Professor Snape."

"Good. And, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor Snape?"

"Please do not attempt to brew potions outside of class as yet. Seeing you blow yourself into a grease smear would be most unpleasant, and the vast majority of potions are not nearly as forgiving as those I foist upon my first-year students."

"Yes, Professor Snape."

"Good. Run along now, young lady; you have a meal to attend."

Snape watched her go, then sighed and glanced back at Hermione's cauldron.

"Well, we shall see." he muttered. "Twinky!"

"Mr Snape Sir is calling for Twinky, yes?" Twinky the house elf asked, appearing.

"Indeed." Snape pointed at Hermione's cauldron. "I would appreciate it if that, once cooled, were to be added to Madam Pomfrey's supplies."

"Is Miss Pomfrey Ma'am's supllieses not being Mr Snape Sir's own brewingses, Mr Snape Sir?" Twinky asked, thoughtfully sniffing at Hermione's cauldron.

"Correct."

"... but isn't Mr Snape Sir being a great and wise alkermisterer, Mr Snape Sir?"

gTwinky, this," and Snape pointed at Hermione's cauldron once again, "Is of a quality on a level with my own."

The little elf went rather pop-eyed. She'd heard that before about perhaps a dozen students, tops, none of whom had been first-years; nodding rapidly, she put on a set of oven gloves, carefully picked the cauldron up, and popped away.

Snape allowed himself a dry chuckle as he began clearing up the stinking mess Neville had produced. It hadn't taken him long to impart to the house-elves that cleaning up their own messes was a matter of pride to alchemists and it was a master's business to ensure that his students' messes got dealt with; house-elf pride and honour wasn't so different.

Besides, he liked doing things with his hands. He never would have become an alchemist if he hadn't felt that way.

-/- Fragmentation; some kind of staff meeting -/-

"I have an image in my mind, concerning the next Interscholastic Alchemical Tournament." Snape continued. "The image concerns the Cup for First Prize, resting upon that mantlepiece across this room. If Miss Granger should maintain this quality, that image might become a reality." That one hit home; the Cup in question had dwelt at Beauxbatons since Snape's team won it in his sixth year as a Hogwarts student.

"You really think she's Interscholastic material?" Grubbly-Plank asked.

"If we were to team that young lady with the Weasley twins... think about it."

His colleagues – including those not in the know – thought about it.

It didn't take a seer to tell they liked the thought.

-/- Fragmentation to the tune of maybe half a week -/-

"You're a right nightmare!" Ron snapped. "Always gotta know it all, no wonder you're that greasy git's teacher's pet! It's no wonder you haven't got any friends!"

Hermione burst into tears and bolted, so upset she even left her notepads behind.

That one had hit entirely too close to home.

Ron also left the table, going storming off up to his dorm without actually realising the effect he'd just had.

For his part, Neville Longbottom sat there in a quandary about whether to go and punch Ron in the teeth or to go and make sure Hermione was going to be okay or to do what – so he ended up doing nothing.

"... I'm such a wussie." he muttered.

-/- Fragmentation; later that day -/-

"Y'know that Hermione Granger?" Parvati said.

"Course I do." her less-flighty twin sister replied.

"She's in the downstairs loo, crying on about something." From Parvati's manner, Harry got the sense that this was supposed to be a juicy piece of gossip.

So he immediately looked at Hannah since she usually knew the gossip.

"Hmm?" Hannah said.

"Padma an' Parvati were saying something about Hermione." Harry prompted. A surprised look passed between Hannah and Susan.

"Well, yeah, you know the downstairs toilets just towards the stairs from Professor Snape's classroom?" Hannah explained. "We saw her in there earlier on, just after Transfiguration, and she's really upset."

"What happened?" Harry asked. Hannah and Susan failed to recognise quite how worked up he was getting, though most of the older Puffs cottoned on at once.

"I'm not sure, I asked her what was wrong and she said something about that Ron Weasley and wanting to be left alone." Susan said.

There was a noise like a string of tiny firecrackers from the region of Harry's knuckles, which caused Cedric Diggory (currently seated opposite the trio) to flinch.

(The usually-cheerful third-year knew what he'd just seen. The last time he saw someone that pissed off was after Charlie Weasley caught his girlfriend cheating on him with that what's-his-name arse from Ravenclaw.

He gave Eric Cadwallader and Maxine O'Flaherty surreptitious elbow nudges.

"We'd better sort it out." Cedric hissed, and there was a round of nodding from the rest of the Puff's Quidditch players.)

Harry, deep in a funk, didn't notice.

"Sure she wants left alone, Susan?" the boy hero asked.

"She kept saying 'leave me alone' when me and Hannah tried to find out what was wrong." Susan explained.

(Cedric glanced concernedly at Maxine and then Eric.)

"Aw blast it." Harry muttered. "I hate it when I can't do something."

"Is there anything we might help with, Harry?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked, leaning forwards to see past Susan.

"Not just now." Harry told the Eton-set lad. "If Hermione wants left alone, well, we've gotta leave her alone."

No Puff argued with that.

It had, after all, taken the collective House Hufflepuff less than a week to realise that arguing with Harry Potter was absolutely pointless, no matter how hard you worked at it – you just had to stick with him and keep hinting till he came round by himself, and the only Puffs who hadn't figured it out were Zak Smith, who was kinda bone-headed like that, and Nymphadora 'Don't-Call-Me-That' Tonks, who was way too mired down in her NEWT classes to worry about firsties.

-/- Fragmentation; same evening; arrival of Quirrel bearing troll-related bad news -/-

"No." Harry said.

"What?" Susan asked.

"I'm goin' down and finding her, you're goin' to the Sett." the pint-sized boy firmly instructed her.

"But you've got just about as much chance as us fighting a..." Hannah abruptly cut off when Harry reached out, grabbed the faceplate of a nearby suit of armour between forefinger and thumb, and crushed it utterly flat with no visible effort at all; he crushed it so thoroughly he left very visible fingerprints embossed in the metal.

"I tole you I'm way more'n I look." he said. "I gotta go now, see you later." And, with that, he took off at a sprint.

-/- Fragmentation; this scene needs lead-in -/-

"You wanna stop being mean now or am I gonna have to do something unpleasant to you?" the pint-sized boy cheerfully asked.

By way of an answer, the troll lashed out with its club; there was a horrible meaty slam as Harry went flying into and, with a splintering crash, clean through the wall.

"Duh, me 'ungry." the troll stated, casually advancing on Hermione.

She screamed again.

That was when, with another tremendous crash (this one seeming to shake the whole castle) a scaly arm longer than the troll was tall came bursting through the wrecked part of the wall where Harry had disappeared, snatching the brute by the leg; a split second later, with another tearing bang, a three-horned reptilian head the size of a small car finished the demolition of the wall.

"That. Hurt." the newly-arrived (and quite unexpected) dragon snarled.

Its jaws closed like some set of gigantic obscene scissors on the troll's upper half, ripping clean through, and the dragon let out a surprised mumble of, "Mmm, yum, bacony!"

Hermione couldn't manage to produce more than a terrified squeak as the titan proceeded to gnash it's way through the remnants of the troll while heaving the rest of the wall off and advancing on her.

"YumyumyumOW!" it said. "GRRKLE! OWdrat!"

Hermione squeaked again.

"What in the HELL is going on HERE?!" came the tremendous bellow of an arriving (not to mention unutterably incensed, you could easily tell that when he actually swore) Severus Snape. "And why exactly did you have to revert to your usual outsize reptile self IN FRONT OF A STUDENT just like we decided you MOST DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT, Mr Potter?!"

"It was the troll an' Hermione din' know 'bout it an' it woz gonna devour her so I devoured it an' it tasted like bacon but I think I got a troll bone stuck in me teeth an' I don't think I oughtta change back because the troll bone's bigger'n my arm when I'm human-shaped I think, Mr Snape." the dragon replied, frowning.

"... I see." the foul-tempered potions master replied, calming down slightly. "You will both immediately accompany me to the infirmary and there will be no backchat!"

"Okay." the dragon said.

"... what's going on?" Hermione squeaked.

"Are you an imbecile, girl?" Snape snarled. "Do you think it an error that I called this wretched lizard 'Mr Potter'?"

"Hey, that ain't fair, she din' know!" Harry declared.

"... wha, wha, I, uh, wha?" Hermione squeaked.

"Oh for all the... foolish girl! Come on, get your behinds into gear AND DON'T YOU DARE EAT THAT ARMOUR, POTTER!"

"... still hungry Mr Snape."

"Drat it! I'll have the house-elves provide you a meal once we're in the infirmary, you no longer have something jammed between your teeth, and we're no longer in danger of running into more dunderheaded fools lolly-lagging around the damn castle when they should be in their dorms!"

"It's that Ron Weasley guy's fault, he was bein' mean to Hermione an' she was hidin' in here bein' all sad an' stuff an' she din' know about the troll!" the dragon firmly declared. "An' you'd all run off someplace before Susan remembered 'bout that!"

"This is neither time nor place for a post-mortem, Potter – get your behind into gear and COME ON!"

"Oh alright then."

"Well? Are you coming or shall Mr Potter have to pick you up by the scruff of the neck like a badly-behaved kitten, Miss Granger?"

Her eyes like Frisbees, Hermione followed dragon and potions master without a word.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Both of you remain exactly where you are! And no playing the fool!" Snape snapped, and went storming off, leaving large dragon and small bushy-haired girl seated in the side room at the back of the Hogwarts infirmary.

"Okay, Mr Snape." the dragon said, then settled down on it's haunches with a barely-stifled giggle.

"... what's going on?" Hermione plaintively asked.

"Oh, um, well I'm a dragon, right, it happened when those standing stone thingies went all glowy after I banged my head on 'em a few years back an' I don't really remember what all happened because I was too busy seeing stars." the dragon explained with a shrug. "We still ain't really sure how it worked but Mrs McGonagall says she's startin' to get an idea about it."

"... er, what happened?"

"Huh?"

"When the standing stones went 'all glowy', what happened?"

"Oh, I turned into a dragon. I usta be a human but you know how easy stuff is to misplace sometimes huh? But don't have a big, you know, situation about it, I'm cool with it 'coz being a dragon's really awesome apart from the whole not being able to let people know bit, sometimes I just wanna go flyin' down Diagon Alley an' yell LOOKIT ME I'M A DRAGON because people gotta respect dragons because we're awesome and cool but all sorts of people are stupid and that means I gotta look like a human mosta the time."

"... oh. Um, look, I guess you can change back and forth between dragon-form and human-form, right?"

"Yeah, that's how I got the other side of that busted-up wall after that troll hit me with his club." the dragon confirmed with a nod, and Hermione suddenly realised just how much like the weird kid called Harry Potter it sounded, and what, exactly, Snape had been on about.

"... Harry?" She checked.

"Yeah?"

"... thankyou."

"Aw, it ain't nothing, you were in distress and there's some stuff a dragon's just gotta do because if he didn't he wouldn't be a proper dragon, and anyway there ain't nobody allowed to pick on my friends and I don't care if the somebody who tries it tastes like bacon."

"... am I your friend?"

"Course you are, weren't for you I wouldn't know trolls taste like bacon an' Master-Sergeant Griphook likes the way you smell, you can tell 'coz he nodded at you, an' you're really clever, an' anyway ain't nobody can have enough friends because friends are the best thing ever, well, apart from damsels and treasures and I think guns but then guns and damsels are two sorts of really special treasure because they're hard to find so that's obvious."

Hermione spent a few startled moments digesting that, then asked, "How'd you know where I was and that the, the t-troll was going to come get me?"

"Well I didn't know the troll was after you till I saw it going into the jurden with its club an' everything, my friend Hannah – she's really nice, I think you'll like her – she said earlier she'd seen you down in the downstairs girls jurden all upset and stuff because that Ron guy did something, and then after Mr Quirrel said there was a troll downstairs my friend Susan – she's just as nice as Hannah and I think you'll like her too – reminded us you were down there last any of us knew, and all the teachers had already run off to go get the troll so I thought I'd better go let you know about the troll, only when I got there it turned out the troll was out to get you so I thought I'd better see it off, then when it hit me with that club I got really cross and I kinda lost my temper and bit it, and, well, it was really tasty but it's got nasty sharp pointy bones that get up between your teeth and stick in that meaty bit where your teeth stick out of and that hurts." He spent a moment rooting around between his teeth with his tongue (which was easily as big as Hermione) then stopped doing that with a pained yelp.

"Are you okay, Harry?"

"Yeah, but I can't get my tongue under the troll bone at the right angle to hook it out and when I try it jams in and that really hurts."

"Let me have a look." she said, getting up and heading over to his head. "Say 'aah'."

"Aaaah." Harry said, opening his fearsome jaws as wide as he could.

The troll bone was as thick as Hermione's wrist, and the end jammed into Harry's gum was sizzling a bit; something told her that inside Harry's dragon body was very very hot indeed, especially considering the way being near where his throat went past his football-sized tonsils was like when you're too close to a furnace.

Disregarding that, she gripped the jammed-in bone with both hands and pulled.

"OW!" Harry declared, flinching back, and the bone yanked itself out of her hands.

"... sorry." she said., withdrawing.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Aw man, I think my mouth's bleeding a bit. Aw, don't be upset Hermione, it ain't your fault, I just got stuff jammed in my teeth and that kinda stuff happens, right? I mean last time it was a driveshaft but that came out pretty easy coz the bit that was stuck in melted and that's why I don't eat Hyundai's any more, they got nasty pointy spiky driveshafts."

"... you know, Mum and Dad are dentists. They might be able to help." Hermione said, partially because she felt bad about having hurt his already-hurt mouth.

"Well mebbe we'll try that if Mrs Pomfrey can't help." Harry pragmatically told her, nodding firmly, and then they lapsed into silence – uncomfortable on Hermione's part and puzzled on Harry's part.

"Professor Snape's kinda scary." Hermione eventually said.

"Aw, he's not so bad." Harry told her, accompanying his comment with a reptilian shrug. "He pretends he hates everything but I know he doesn't even though it's kinda hard to tell; when he likes something he goes less white and you can see he's trying not to smile and sometimes he gets this sorta excited gleam in his eyes then starts talking and talking and talking about things, normally about how his research works but sometimes he gets, well, for-Mr-Snape-excited about other stuff, and, well, when he does that asking him things before he's finished talking isn't a good idea, he gets really cross and starts yelling when someone breaks his train of thought, and I guess that's fair since interrupting is rude. And, well, Mr Snape gets really cross when people are rude."

"But isn't him going on about everything being stupid a bit rude?"

"I think Mr Snape not growling would be like he wasn't breathing. It doesn't really mean anything unless he starts shouting – if he's not shouting it's just him being Mr Snape. He says being growly all the time is useful because if people think that if they make you angry you'll pull their lungs out through their noses they're less likely to do anything that'll make you angry. Except goblins, he says being growly at goblins is enormously bad for your financial status."

"Trying to annihilate my carefully-crafted reputation, Mr Potter?" said a certain acidic voice, causing poor Hermione to nearly jump out her skin.

"Um, no, I wasn't Mr- um, Professor Snape. I mean, you've gotta admit Hermione's the only person who don't muck anything up in your class and I figured she deserves to know what you're really meaning when you growl."

"I see." Snape said. There was a woman Hermione hadn't offhand met before standing beside him, and she was pretty sure this woman was the school nurse; accompanying them was Harry's pet centaur. "Very well; and both of you kindly keep that information strictly confidential." With that, Snape whirled round and strode off.

"... scary." Hermione said.

"Nah, he's just being Mr Snape."

"Severus tells me you've something stuck in your teeth and can't change back, Harry dear." the woman said.

"Yeah Mrs Pomfrey, I think it's troll leg-bone." the dragon admitted, then paused to poke around in his mouth with a talon again. "OW!"

"Harry, just stop poking at it already!" Hermione requested.

"... ow, ow, ow. Er, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

"Harry, what've you gone and done to yourself?" Suze asked; the 'this time' was unsaid but definitely implied.

"Well I ate a troll and it tasted kinda like bacon but I got one of it's bones stuck in my teeth..."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Just outside the infirmary, Severus Snape paused, ran the last few minutes over again in his mind, and grimaced.

"Drat that reptile, he's mellowed me."

-/-/-/-/-/-

Twenty minutes of half-stifled swearing later, Madam Pomfrey declared the bone (which, counter to Harry's guess, was not a leg-bone) jammed beyond her ability to remove partially as, being a part of a troll, it was naturally highly resistant to magic, as was Harry's mouth as it was a firmly-attached component of a dragon.

Thirty seconds after that, Hermione had suggested her parents again. The next twenty-six minutes she spent explaining what a dentist is and what they do.

Albus Dumbledore was quite promptly called for, and he then requested the presence of Minerva McGonagall as she'd actually met Tony and Sharon Granger and thus had a measure of them; shortly thereafter, she took off via Portkey and then Apparation to go and ask if they'd be willing to assist in this matter.

-/-/-/-/-/-

"Well it seems there is some scoring on your teeth, Mr. Potter. This canine has a particularly large score. What exactly have you been eating? Do you make a habit of eating trolls?" Tony Granger asked, sweating profusely from the heat coming from the blast-furnace of a stomach of the dragon, the heavy protective gear and respiration equipment, the tools he was using, and the fact that he was voluntarily up to his arse in an extremely large dragon's mouth. He owed young Mr. Potter a good turn, for saving his dearest only daughter from the aforementioned troll, which seemed to have part of it's arm firmly wedged between Harry's first superior molar, and his second superior pre-molar. "Tongs."

Suze slapped the requested implement into his waved-around hand.

"No thir! 'ant et 'un 'efor!" replied Harry, trying to avoid running his tongue over Tony while the man was extracting the troll chunks from his mouth. "OW!"

That last was a result of Tony finally managing, aided by the pair of blacksmith's tongs, to drag the offending bone out.

"Tony! Careful now!" Sharon Granger lectured. She was against the back wall of the room, holding onto Hermione, who'd taken to twitching violently at every repetition of the word 'Troll'; this had immediately directed her mother's centre of focus onto a certain distraught daughter, leaving Tony knee-deep in dragon drool and with a certain centaur as an assistant.

Centaur. Dragon. Troll. The mere fact that those things EXISTED was enough to throw Tony for a loop, and never mind being asked to extract a portion of the latter from the teeth of the second while the first did a remarkably competent job of passing the necessary tools. He'd been thrown the first time he'd met Suze, but had shaken it all off with a, 'this wizarding stuff is weird'; how weird hadn't really sunk in until he ran into all this in a professional capacity.

"Daddy! Be careful!" shrieked Hermione, biting her nails to the quick, as she watched the procedure with an evident mixture of interest and fear.

"S'allright, Harry won't hurt me, I've almost got it!" Tony said with a laugh. The bone had splintered a bit and he was now using more familiar tools – pincers – to extract the fragments.

"Daddy! Honestly, can't you see you're hurting poor Harry!" Hermione complained, causing a brief double-take.

"Anthony Granger, the poor boy is already in enough pain as it is! You stop lumbering around like an elephant in his mouth, it's not like we have any anaesthetic proven to be safe for a dragon." Sharon added.

Tony's jaw dropped, as he turned to look at the two most important girls in his life.

'I am a twitch away from being an after dinner dessert to this beast of a dragon, who just ate a 9 foot bloody troll like a damned treacle tart, and they are worried about me hurting HIM!?'

Tony shook his head. He knew it would happen eventually, but in his daughter's first year, he knew he had already lost her to this, this, well, this Monster!

Oh well, Sharon's father had laughingly warned him when he had brought Hermione home from the hospital. He had hoped he could keep his little girl all to himself for at least a couple decades, but it looked like it was already too late.

Who would have thought that the man who took his daughter away would not be a shining knight on horseback, but a dragon more likely to flambé the knight?

With a sigh, he returned to work. Stupid boys, eh, dragons. "Hold on just a second there Harry, almost... almost... There! Got it!" He proudly turned with the severely charred remnant of the troll's arm, expecting the accolades of his daughter and wife. He idly wondered how he could publish this in the Dentist's review. First sapient interspecies extraction? Safety techniques for the hygienic maintenance and upkeep of the orthodontia of a pre-adolescent dragon?

While Tony was ruminating on the fame this could bring him, he suddenly realized that his wife and daughter were not congratulating him for his daring and skill, but that blasted lizard!

"Now Harry, you really have to learn to chew your food! Why, that could have affected your permanent teeth if we hadn't gotten it out of there, or you could have gotten an infection, or even an abscess!" Sharon warned.

"We?" muttered Tony.

"Be quiet, dear. Now Harry, besides troll, what does your diet consist of? Are you getting plenty of calcium and fluoride in your diet? What about vegetables? Are you getting enough protein?" Sharon asked.

Harry was greatly enjoying the attention, as he worked his jaw back and forth, getting the feeling back. "Well, Mrs Granger, I'm pretty sure I get plenty of the first from the scrapyard where Hagrid gets me Toyotas, and I really like Devils' Snare as it's nice and minty, and I love the taste of roasted Acromantula, but there ain't so many left now." he happily explained, delighted to no longer have a troll bone jammed into his gum.

"Scrapyard? Devils Snare? Honestly, Harry! Who lets you eat that kind of thing! Devil's Snare is dangerous and could kill you! Wait! Did you say Acromantula? Those are giant spiders Harry! What do you think you are doing? You could be hurt!" Hermione declared, instantly and absolutely horrified.

"Ha! Please calm yourself, Miss Granger. Mr. Potter's body utilises iron, steel, aluminium, titanium and other metals in much the same manner as yours or mine utilises carbon-based proteins; technically speaking, iron is the basic building block upon which his body is built. I am given to understand that he consumed all of the contents of a garage the night upon which his remarkable transformation occurred." Snape remarked. "As for his remarkable digestive tract, it's fires are fuelled by vast quantities of hydrocarbons; think of his bioalchemy as being much like a living smelter. And as it happens, according to Mr Potter, Devil's Snare tastes like a cross between parsley and lemon mint; I believe it is due to the precise composition of reagents within the structure of the plant in question, in addition to potent reactile accelerants it contains traces of minerals usually acquired from certain herbs... As for the Acromantulas, yes they are indeed giant spiders, but you should bear in mind the fact that they pose as much threat to Mr Potter as a chocolate frog to you or I. I find that when properly grilled they are quite the delicacy myself." Snape explained, idly glaring at the suddenly bashful dragon who was looking anywhere but at the potions master.

"Sorry, Professor Snape, I didn't know that you could get solomonella from undercooked Acromantula," Harry mispronounced, looking somewhat embarrassed; nobody corrected him, partially because he was somehow managing to be too cute to correct despite being a multi-ton dragon,

"Harry, just what made you try eating giant spider, instead of a, well, I guess a nice balanced diet?" asked a quiet Sharon Granger.

"Well for a start they tried to pick on Suze's family." Harry explained. "And then, well, they taste kinda like scrunchy chicken in diesel and they don't make me fart which chickens do, I think it's the feathers, and anyway I got a score to settle with spiders."

"And pray tell, why would you have a score to settle with spiders?" Sharon asked.

"Um, well... backwhenilivedinthecupboardtheywouldcrawlallovermeandscaredme." whispered a suddenly shrinking Harry Potter, seeming to literally fold in on himself, going from a large dragon, to a small pre-teen boy. "They're creepy." The boy still had the gorgeous rich emerald eyes of the dragon, but now had a tousled head of dark hair that had both Granger women itching to run their hands through it.

For different reasons, of course.

"Why would you ever be put into a cupboard Harry?" Sharon checked, and Tony stifled a wince as he saw the tears brimming in the corners of his wife's eyes and the way her fingernails were biting into the palms of her hands.

That was Sharon firmly into mama-bear mode and when that happened the best thing to do was dive for cover; when something got her maternal instincts going, she was absolutely remorseless.

Snape was considering her, an unreadable look on his face; Suze looked worried, Hermione looked scandalised, and Dumbledore was idly tapping one foot and humming along to an unheard-but-jaunty tune.

The potions master proved himself quite sensible in Tony's educated opinion when, in response to the remarkably similar glares directed his way by both female Grangers (not to mention one female centaur and one school nurse) he grimaced and angled a thumb at Dumbledore.

"Oh, they didn't really need me to do anything, doing better than Dudley on an exam, not knowing how the footie went when Uncle Vernon had to work late, or when I got blamed for the stuff Dudley nicked from the corner shop..." Harry rambled, shrugging.

Suze hugged him with one arm for a moment.

"Have you settled the score with the spiders, Harry?" Professor McGonagall asked, adding her glare to those being directed at the still blissfully humming Headmaster.

"Huh? Oh, yeah I guess. I mean there were loads of them before, now it takes me ages to find any. But Hagrid said he gotten a big sack of their eggs from the nest, and he said he knows how to raise them so as long as I don't get too guzzle-guts, I should be able to still have some sometimes." Harry explained, immediately cheering up.

"Yes, Harry, one must be mindful of restraint and balance, as even the spiders play a vital role in the ecosystem of the Forbidden Forest. For the Greater Good of the Forest you really will have to learn to control yourself." a certain headmaster provided, before returning to humming.

"... greater good of the forest?" Snape muttered, firmly shaking his head; Tony was pretty sure he saw a look of mixed disgust and disbelief flicker across the man's face. "... introduced species, ecological disaster, greater good?!"

"They're really yummy and, y'know, they tried to eat my centaur friends! They taste sorta like a hairy chicken but with diesel on, and they're really scrummy when they're roasted proper. Hey, uh, I think the troll didn't go down too good, and I need to...uh, you know..." explained Harry as he held his stomach, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Come along boy, I'll escort you to the forest so you can take care of your necessities," interjected a worried looking Snape, seeing the fierce looks being directed towards the still obliviously humming Headmaster.

"I think I'll come with you, Professor. I'd like to see the grounds while I'm here and talk to Harry as well." Tony added, now out of his protective gear but still holding the bolt cutters in one hand, while he placed the other firmly on Harry's shoulder. He was no longer in dentist mode, but still had a strong urge to inflict pain. Then there was the fact that he recognized the look on his wife's face, and had no desire to be hit by any of the splash damage; when Sharon Granger went ballistic she was absolutely unstoppable and wise men got the Hell out the way.

"Good idea you two, I'd like to ask a few questions of the esteemed Headmaster here, and I don't think Harry needs to be present for them." said Sharon, smiling and nodding at Professor McGonagall, who was idly tracing the runes on her wand. "Hermione, why don't you go with your father?"

"I don't feel like going for a walk, Mum," Hermione replied, fixing Dumbledore with a glare cold enough to flash-freeze Harry's stomach juices.

"Hmm." Sharon glanced side-on at her daughter, arched an eyebrow, nodded, and smiled ferally.

"I stay." Suze stated, her off-hand idly patting the pistol grip of her rifle.

"Off you go boys! We'll take care of things here!" Professor McGonagall said. It didn't sound like a suggestion – it sounded like an order.

"Hey, why are you all going glarey at..." Harry started, but Snape grabbed one arm, Tony Granger the other, and the potions master placed his off hand over Harry's mouth.

"Shut up and run, you idiotic reptile!"

"For the love of God, don't look back!" Tony muttered, as he and Snape lifted Harry and dragged him from the room.

"... murmph?"

-/-/-/-/-/-

Harry couldn't help but wonder what was happening when he heard a "Silen-" and then a squelching noise coming from the infirmary back-room. He thought the voice was Hermione's, but wasn't sure since she sounded pretty like her mum.

It must be great to have a mum. Maybe he could borrow Hermione's?

As the two men marched him downstairs and then through the Great Hall, he noticed that the Gryffindor hourglass seemed to be rapidly filling with gemstones. Hmm. Everyone who could give points was in the Great Hall, with the exception of the Headmaster and Hermione's Head of House. Hermione must really be impressing those two to be earning so many house points.

He mentioned wanting to go back, and both men laughed this weird sort of laugh while Tony stooped and threw Harry over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Unsure of what was going on, Harry resisted the temptation to turn into his centaur shape and sit on Mr Granger's head until the man explained; Hermione probably wouldn't like her dad's head getting sat on and she was nice, if weird; he had absolutely no clue of how much this thought resembled pots calling kettles black.

Once they were outside, the dentist put Harry down, and looked him squarely in the eyes with what looked like an attempt to be Sergeant-Major Hooktalon-style of scary.

"Harry, I want you to listen to me very closely. I am going to give you some very important advice." Mr Granger declared in what seemed to be an attempt to growl. He was also waving the blacksmith's tongs around.

"Huh?" Harry asked, puzzled.

"One." Tony said. "Whenever women sound like that and are smiling at each other, get the hell out of there as fast as you can, and forget that crap about 'leave no man behind'! Tip a pint up for the poor bastard at the pub, and don't make the same mistake as him."

"... er, right?"

"Two. If you think my princess is going to be just another damsel, or score on the wall of your lair, you need to remember something very important. If I have to go to jail for protecting the virtue of my daughter, it will be for something so gory, abominable, and atrocious, that they reinstate the death penalty."

"... huh?"

"Three. I will be sending you a film to watch. It's what inspired me to become a dentist. Very popular in its' time. It has Dustin Hoffman in it. You know that funny fellow who played Captain Hook in the film Hook? You remind me of him quite a bit Harry."

"... eh?"

"Four. You can score all you want in Quidditch, but if you try and pressure to 'score' with Hermione, or try it before you are at least engaged? I'll use these bolt cutters to crush your bollocks like rotten grapes."

Seeing as how he'd quit trying to be scary and seemed to be waiting for a response, Harry gave Tony a faintly surprised look.

"Y'know, I think you oughtta get growling lessons, Mr Snape's friend Miss Chelmsford can help with that, she's a really good growler."

"... what?"

"Well, I kinda figured that was you trying to growl at me and, well, you're not much good at it and I don't listen to growls from people who're bad at growling because it's normally rubbish like Uncle Vernon usta say, I mean, look at it this way, Uncle Vernon's proud of voting for Thatcher. And I think you might have been trying to be scary but, well, you're never gonna be able to out-scary Sergeant-Major Hooktalon because being scary is what Sergeant-Majors do, that's what they're there for, someone's gotta get the bone-headed squaddies to act all soldierly and stuff. And, y'know, I don't play quidditch because brooms go twang, zoom off, and stick in stuff whenever I try to get 'em to work. Anyway, I really gotta go take a dump before I really stink the whole place up." With that he transformed and went shooting away across the forest.

Back where the young dragon had just launched, Snape gave Tony a side-on look.

"So that's where Miss Granger got her unfortunate judgement." he remarked. "I must surmise that what wisdom she possesses was inherited from her mother."

"... I beg your pardon?" Tony asked, quite put out.

"Need I remind you that you just attempted to threaten an excitable dragon, currently massing sixteen tons and putting on nearly a ton per month, whose teeth are able to shear through a motor vehicle's engine block as easily as you or I would bite through a breadcrust, and who has a digestive tract hot enough to boil lead?" the potions master asked, sardonically raising an eyebrow.

"... er. Wait, hang on, how exactly couldn't he get that troll bone out if he can bite straight through a car?"

"That's the thing about troll bones; they behave in quite an intriguing manner under pressure. Against side-on pressure, they are relatively easily broken; when compressed end-on, their resilience is quite remarkable. In many ways, they resemble the material I believe you would know as carbon-fibre."

"... ah. I see. I suppose they perform well against heat?"

"Not especially so – far better than most metals, but not especially so." Snape said with a shrug. "However, they transfer heat extremely well; Mr Potter suggested attempting to burn it out but we decided that was a bad idea as his flame breath is almost a thousand degrees Celsius hotter than his blood."

"Ah. Well, I suppose that makes sense." Tony shook his head. "I just don't want Hermione becoming any more entangled in... in all this."

"Entangled?" Snape let out a humourless bark of laughter. "She is in the process of befriending a rather sizeable dragon who takes grave – and, I might note, exceptionally violent – offence to anyone and anything that dares so much as threaten his friends, and you're worried about her becoming 'entangled'? What exactly, may I ask, do you expect to become of her?"

"I don't know, and that's what I'm worried about." Tony said. "Look, Professor. Sharon and I, we know next to nothing about... about this world. Trolls, giant spiders, dragons, ye gods! It scared the Hell out of me, man!"

"... hmm. I retract what I said about you lacking wisdom." Snape remarked.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"That, Doctor Granger, is supposed to mean that this, this 'world', is not the la-la land Minerva has an unfortunate habit of painting it as; this world is an exceptionally scary place largely inhabited by unutterable bastards who would not piss on a burning orphan unless they were paid to do so, and even then they would wait for the bank draft to clear – in fact, they would largely be more likely to point and laugh, and possibly fry sweetmeats on the conflagration."

"I'm not a doctor, I'm a surgeon... and what exactly in the Hell are you talking about, what's it got to do with my daughter, and why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"Bad feeling? Anthony, expect that feeling to get naught but worse as time goes by." Snape gestured in the direction Harry had flown off. "That dratted dragon still believes that people are generally good and that the world is a place where bad things only happen to bad people. He still believes that the good guys always win and that everyone comes home in one piece. I suggest you ask a police officer how likely perfect safety is, and I suggest you ask yourself exactly what is the nature of any so-called civilisation wherein a being capable of speech and in fact quite civilised – such as that wretched lizard's pet centaur – is considered an uncontrolled wild animal. Once you have found the answers to those questions, Anthony Granger, get in touch with me. Until then, don't do anything foolish such as discouraging your daughter from associating with the most powerful protector a young witch of non-magical parentage and background could possibly find herself. And while you're about it, be extremely careful who you trust. Curiosity may have led to the death of the cat, but it's the lackey of the politician who dislikes inquiry who cast the spell that killed the cat."

"So you're saying Hermione can't look after herself."

"What exactly in the way of 'looking after herself' do you believe a lightly-armed pre-teen child is able to perform?" Snape sneered. "Especially one who has largely been ostracised by the imbeciles that she inserted herself into the midst of – and just what the Hell do you think a dentist or a twelve-year-old girl able to do when the government in general and the individual in a position of leadership in specific regard those of us of non-magical parentage as barely worthy of the term 'human' and never mind anything in the way of legal representation? The phrases bandied about are 'mudblood' or 'muggle-born' and I apologise for having used either within your hearing as both are quite disgusting epithets."

"And you think that Harry kid's different."

"Anthony, I know the blasted reptile is different. Firstly, although underage and thus lacking most of the resultant influence, he is the patriarch and sole living member of an Ancient and Noble House and thus has certain political and legal immunities and benefits. Secondly, he is quite admirably protective of anyone he considers a friend. Thirdly, as you somehow failed to properly perceive, he is an excitable sixteen-ton dragon able to lob boulders with the ease you or I would throw a rugger ball. Fourthly, he is the only living creature ever known to have survived being struck by the Killing Curse, the flat-out deadliest spell known to wizardkind. Fifthly, he is almost sickeningly good-natured; the only thing about him I can categorically say I dislike is his rampant habit of chattering away at about a thousand miles per minute, aside from his frequent babbling he is a surprisingly tolerable child. And sixthly, I have watched that boy dismember an acromantula the size of a small lorry for having the temerity to threaten one of his friends – and, as it so happens, a few hours ago he bodily devoured an adult mountain troll, a creature that usually requires several fully-trained magic-users to defeat – due to said creature attacking one of his friends; I have absolutely no doubt that any creature or being that dared pose a threat to one of his own would meet a similarly ignominious end at his jaws."

"... and you think he'd go off at anyone who had a go at Hermione."

"Think? Anthony, he ATE a troll because it attacked your daughter. Remember? The reason you are here at this time?"

"... ah. Yeah."

"Indeed."

The two men lapsed into silence for a while.

"What's with those 'acro-mantula' things?" Tony eventually asked.

"Acromantulas are a species of semi-sapient giant arachnid." Snape said. "They treat any creature less than twice their size – human beings included – as prey. Their origins are obscure, but it is known that they did not evolve naturally; their genesis was a part of a botched experiment, much like basilisks or the duck-billed platypus, only the original instigator of the acromantula is currently unknown. When hatched, they are approximately the size of a large man's hand, and able to prey on species up to the size of a housecat; as they age, they grow continuously. The largest known specimen was approximately eight yards long in the body with legs of a similar length. Their silk is of immense value in the spell-proof cloth industry, it is the most magic-resistant material known and I understand that it's tensile strength is sufficient to stretch a woven cord of it from Earth's surface to geosynchronous orbit, and their venom is an ingredient of several remarkably versatile potions – although deadly in all but the most minute doses, killing through paralysis of the heart, if administrated in sufficiently dilute quantities it is a part of the simplest treatments for collywobbles and the dragon pox, and is excellent as an active ingredient within potions for the cleaning of magic-reactive metals such as gold. However, the damage they do to the ecosystem of their territorial range is extensive and largely outweighs the benefit of availability of their product reagents; in this area, they are primarily responsible for rendering at least twelve native species entirely extinct and endangering a further twenty-seven, four of which are the source of truly unique reagents, and until that dratted dragon came into the equation the only things preventing them from boiling out of that forest like a plague of elephant-sized locusts were the typically low wintertime temperatures of this area and a hard-fought defensive action over a period of some fifty years on the part of the local centaur clan."

"There'd probably be a way to captive-breed them." Tony said. "To, well, to milk the silk and venom."

"It has been done, primarily by removing their limbs; however, they are capable of regrowing amputated legs in a matter of days and strict vigilance is thus absolutely paramount." Snape said with a shrug. "Personally, I am of the opinion that your kind – non-magical humans – would be best able to contain and control those brutes, but those in a position of authority have other ideas."

"Hey, are you guys friends now?" a certain dragon asked, landing beside them and causing Tony to wince slightly.

"Perhaps." Snape said, shrugging slightly.

"Oh right, that's cool. It's just you were kinda getting all glarey at each other when I went to take a dump."

"It's as resolved as it can get now, Harry." Tony said. "Hey, and, uh, couldja do me a favour?"

"What sort of a favour?" Harry asked, sounding a touch dubious.

"Take care of Hermione, okay?"

"Well I was gonna do that anyway since she's nice." Harry said, shrugging as he transformed back to his human shape. "Hey, I'm really hungry."

"You're always hungry." Snape groaned.

"Nah, just mosta the time, I'm in a growth spurt remember? I'm a growing dragon and you can't do growing if you ain't eating enough."

"Precisely my point. Wretched lizard."

"You're in a real sour mood today, Mr Snape." Harry said, giving his friend a worried look. "What's wrong?"

"I suppose you recall our conversation shortly after your abortive first visit to Diagon Alley, correct?"

"Well, yeah, course I do." Harry said with a nod. "I think about that stuff real regular – it's gonna be real important when people find out I'm a dragon so I've got to work out what to do before it gets annoying."

"Indeed; and that, my boy, is closely related to my current concerns."

"I don't think Hermione's gonna tell on us." Harry said.

"Ah, you misunderstand me. We shall discuss this later, in private."

Harry shrugged, obviously not getting it.

Tony just stood there and tried to work out which of these two he should be glaring at just now.

-/- Fragmentation. Scenes needed:

\- Tony and Sharon leave Hogwarts; Hermione's ostracism continues; Slackhammer invites Snape and Harry to another business meeting; intro to next scene, discussion of money; SSP has experienced a massive increase in cash flow; they look at possibilites for buy-outs -/-

Harry thoughtfully scratched his head as he contemplated the varied printouts.

"Mr Slackhammer," he said, "Are these Hogs Haulage people the people what run the Hogwarts Express?"

"Indeed, they are." Slackhammer confirmed.

"Cool..." Harry said. "Um, it says here that it's one hundred and sixteen Galleons and twelve Sickles each share, and it says there's ten thousand shares in the company um, uh, owned by... a hundred and fifteen different people I think? One of which is me and I've got nine and a bit percent. And the rest is all for sale so doesn't that mean the train company's for sale?"

Slackhammer spent a moment checking his copy of the printouts.

"Essentially, yes." he said.

"And it says here I've got, um, fifty-seven million Galleons in my vault so that means I can afford to buy the train company, right?"

"Yes; correct." Slackhammer confirmed.

"Then I think I'd like to buy the train company, Mr Slackhammer." Harry said, looking up from the printouts.

"What makes you consider this a wise investment, Mr Potter?" Snape asked.

"Well it's not really that Mr Snape, it's more since I've got fifty-seven and a bit million Galleons in my vault I can afford to buy stuff because I think it's cool." Harry explained. "And I was having a look at the train in London and I think it's really kinda cool and I'd like to be able to say it's MY train. And I don't think it'd be wasting money because I think I know how to make it more profitable."

"And how do you propose to increase the profitability of the company, young man?" Snape asked.

"Well for a start there's more places in Britain than London and Hogsmeade it'd be worth having a train for magic people." Harry said. "Birmingham and Liverpool would be really worth having trains for too, there's more magic people in each of 'em than there is in Hogsmeade and did you know it's cheaper to send a ton of stuff to Hogsmeade by train than it is to send a ton of stuff to Sidelong Road in Liverpool by lorry? And you said that Mr Malfoy guy was one of the biggest baddies there are, and he owns the lorry company, and I think if we make it so he gets less money that'd be a good thing."

Snape nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps."

"And," Harry continued, "Did you know they're building a railway to France?"

"Ah yes, the Channel Tunnel project; quite the impressive effort of engineering." Slackhammer said.

"Well I was thinking maybe we could have trains from London to Paris and stuff too once it's finished." Harry said.

"I shall ensure that the possibility is investigated." Slackhammer confirmed.

Harry nodded happily. "Then I'm going to buy the train company."

"I shall arrange for it at once." Slackhammer said, nodding back; he turned his attention to a telegraph sender, and began tapping out something in Morse code.

Snape gave Harry a side-on look.

"You just want to play with trains, don't you?"

"Well... that too."

"Mr Snape, regardless of his reasons I concur with Mr Potter's decision that the purchase of Hogs Haulage would be a wise move." Slackhammer remarked, still Morseing away.

"Oh? And how so?"

"I am given to understand, Mr Snape, that everyone currently within this room sees eye-to-eye on the subject of wizarding 'justice' and what passes for law within the magical parts of our civilisation." Slackhammer said, still tapping away at the Morse sender.

Snape raised an eyebrow.

"As you are no doubt aware, the Goblin Nation is one of the few non-human polities to achieve a measure of independence and self-governance within the so-called 'Wizarding World'." Slackhammer continued. "What you likely do not know is that we are at a constant risk of reconquest; it is relatively unusual for a year to go by without the Ministry making some form of attempt or dirty trick intended to bring goblinkind back towards their direct control. The social system that gives rise to so-called 'Dark Lords' is not only bad for business, it is bad for goblinkind, Mr Snape, and I and my fellow boardmembers have begun to investigate certain methodologies for stymieing said social system."

He looked up from the sender with a flourish, his message sent.

"I am given to understand," he said, "That during the years of abolition of slavery within the non-magical society of North America, fleeing slaves escaped via a hidden network of pathways referred to as an 'underground railroad' and I reckon it poetic that those from our homeland should begin their journey to freedom aboard a train."

"We could bring them to Hogsmeade." Snape said. "But what then?"

Slackhammer smiled thinly. "Then, Mr Snape, Gringotts PLC's container ships sail daily from the port of Glasgow, travelling to places all over the globe; perhaps they could carry... a little extra cargo. For charitable reasons. I'm sure we understand one another."

"We do indeed." Snape said, matching the thin smile.

"That's what to do." Harry said. "You bring my gold up by lorry at the moment. Why not bring it by train? We could have special coaches that burglars can't get into, all armoured and stuff and with guards with big machine guns. And that way the people who really really really need to not be here any more could ride north with my gold and get on a boat in Mallaig that'd take them to the ship that'd get them way away from those Sassenachs and all their pish." (4)

"I must," Snape muttered, "Remind Minerva to desist in the Gaelic foul language in front of the impressionable dragon."

-/- Fragmentation to the tune of about two in-story days -/-

"Harry..."

"Yeah Susan?"

"Hermione's crying in the back of the library again." Susan Bones said. "I thought you'd want to know."

Harry's cheerful expression abruptly terminated itself, replaced by a black glower.

"Right, I've had it with this." he stated, rising to his feet.

"Had it with what?" Hannah asked, puzzled.

"Had it with sittin' back and watching."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere much, I just gotta talk to a damsel about stuff."

With that, he was out of the Puffs' common room at a dead sprint.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hannah asked the world in general.

"... I, well, don't know." Susan admitted; the rest of the world failed to reply.

-/-Faintest of fragmentation; needs Harry arriving in library-/-

"You're still getting picked on, ain't you?" Harry said.

"What about it?" Hermione dubiously asked.

"Well, I wanted you to know I can do somethin' about it." Harry explained with a shrug. "Aw, don't look at me all growly-like, I don't mean sittin' on anyone's head or anything, I mean I can, y'know, carry you off an' that way you'd be stayin' in my lair."

"What? Your lair? Aren't the Hufflepuffs in dorms too?"

"Well mostly." Harry said, shrugging. "But kids who live within about thirty miles of the castle don't gotta stay over at the castle, right? And since I gotta lair up the back of the Forbidden Forest..." He shrugged again.

"Then how would I be allowed to stay in your lair then?" Hermione asked.

"Well the rules say kids can sleep over with friends who aren't staying at the castle if the friends are some of the kids who live real near to the castle and the rules don't say how often you can do that, especially if the kid who's sleeping over is a, a what's the word, a dependent of the kid they're sleeping over with, then they ain't allowed to stay at the castle anyway."

"I'm not a dependent, well, of anyone but Mum and Dad."

"I could kidnap you and that way you would be."

"... isn't that against the rules?"

Harry snorted, fished around in his pocket, removed a shrunken book, put it on the table, and un-shrunk it.

It proved to be an enormous brass-and-leather-bound tome bigger than Harry's torso, with 'HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WIZARDRY AND WITCHCRAFT: RULES OF.' engraved into a brass plate on the front cover. From the look of it, it had to weigh more than Hermione.

"... er."

"Ain't much of anything's against the rules if you say it right." Harry said.

"How on Earth can a school have enough rules to fill that?"

"Well, it's because they've been making rules for like a thousand years and once something's a rule they don't ever stop it being a rule, they just add more rules to it if they feel like it. My solicitor Madam Axetalon went through it for me and she says there's even more loopholes in there than in the laws about owning dragon eggs, and she's real good at spotting that sort of stuff, it's her job, it's how she gets her money and she's well rich. And, well, there's a rule that says if someone's someone else's pet then ain't nobody can stop the someone-who's-a-pet staying with the someone whose pet they are."

"... isn't that against the law?" Hermione asked, then started getting worried when Harry grimaced

"The Wizarding World ain't a very nice place, Hermione, and it don't matter what anyone told you." he said.

"... you mean it's legal?"

"Yeah."

Hermione thought about that for a long moment while staring at the book of rules.

"How can they do that?"

"Same way as they can say my Suze's an animal because she ain't a human. Same way as it took the goblins lots and lots of shooting to stop the laws calling them animals. There's a lot of not-nice people out there, Hermione, and they don't much like people like you, and if they knew I'm a dragon they wouldn't much like me neither. Course that means I'm gonna have to make like Smaug on 'em sometime, but then they really oughtta learn you don't wanna make a dragon angry and from what Mr Snape says the only way they learn stuff is the hard way."

"Would I ever be able to stop being your, your 'pet'?"

"Well yeah, any time I said so and, y'know, I'd say so if you wanted me to."

"Apart from the whole me not needing to live in the Gryffindor dorms what else would it mean? I mean, law-wise?"

"Well main thing it'd mean is me being allowed to smash people's faces in if they messed with you." Harry said, shrugging. "Well, and it'd mean you'd gotta do stuff if I told you to but I ain't gonna do that unless it's important anyway."

"... I'll need to think about this." she said.

"Okay. It ain't an offer that's gonna go away or nothing."

Hermione nodded distractedly, still staring at the book of rules.

"It's insane." she eventually said.

"What is?" Harry asked.

"That something can exist right here in Britain that's so... so wrong."

"Yeah, I know." Harry agreed, shrugging. "Way I see it is, I'm gonna be a good little boy-who-ain't-deaded till we decide it's time for people to know I'm a dragon, then I'm gonna stomp all over 'em because I don't like people who mess with my damsels, and they'd better take real good attention because there ain't nobody don't take notice when dragons say they gotta take notice." He clenched his fist and grinned crazily. "Well, unless they try to take any of my treasures away first, because if that happens forget about bets, they're gonna find out just how good that advice in the Hogwarts motto thingy really is."

"... Hogwarts motto?"

"It says 'never tickle a sleeping dragon' in Latin and I think it's because people who tickle sleeping dragons get barbecued. Dunno why they always seem to use Latin for mottoes, I guess it's because it looks all motto-ey."

"... huh."

"Hey, and, uh, Hermione?"

"What?"

"Guns and damsels are very valuable sorts of treasures. Thought you'd wanna know." Harry rose to his feet. "You know where to find me, right?"

Hermione nodded warily; the human-formed pre-teen dragon paused in the act of walking away, and glanced back at her.

"It's that Ron Weasley. Innit?"

"What about it?"

"I'll fix his shit." Harry told her, and left.

Hermione spent a few long moments staring after him, then shook it off, opened the front cover of the book of rules, and began to read.

-/-Slight fragmentation; next morning-/-

The brothers Weasley were surprised to say the least when, as they (and their fellow Gryffindors) were just entering the Great Hall on their way to breakfast, a certain pint-sized Hufflepuff whom they all agreed should have been a Gryffindor because, come on, he was HARRY POTTER, got in their way.

"What?" Fred Weasley asked, but the boy hero ignored him, instead glaring fixedly at his younger brother Ron.

Then the short-arse Boy-Who-Lived grabbed the much taller youngest Weasley brother by the front of his robes, hoisted him off his feet with a complete lack of any visible effort, and banged him against the nearest wall.

Several of the nearby Gryffs went for their wands, but the words that came tumbling out of Potter's mouth stopped them dead in their tracks.

"Hermione nearly got her head smashed in because of you, you ginger cross-eyed Sassenach." the Boy-Who-Lived growled. "Real gutsy of you. Real Gryffindor courage, pickin' on someone who's too nice to fight back. Well that's over with, Ron Weasley. I'm a Puff and we don't let nobody mess with our friends – and you keep pushin' my friend Hermione around you're gonna find what it's like to have your face used to bust a door open, YOU READ ME?"

Ron let out a petrified squeak that might have been supposed to be a yes.

"Good." Potter said, ditched the youngest Weasley boy in a heap on the floor, and went storming off.

Fred, George and Percy shared side-on glances.

What in the Hell had their mutual younger brother gone and done this time?

-/- probably Fragmentation; would flow better with another scene in here -/-

Hermione Granger was in her favourite place – the Hogwarts library, her nose buried in a book, all that was missing a radio to play some background music to help her focus, making notes with one hand while she turned pages with the other.

She'd finished reading the Hogwarts rule-book that morning and gave it back to Harry, and was now checking out all the Wizarding law books she could find, making notes and trying to collate everything.

Her concentration received a rude interruption when someone sat down opposite her and politely cleared his throat.

Looking up, she found one of the Gryffindor prefects, Percy Weasley, looking back.

"Hmm?" she warily asked.

"Hello, Hermione." Percy said. He sounded worried.

He also had his younger brothers – the notorious Weasley twins – flanking him.

"Er, hello." Hermione said.

"We've got the idea our little brother's being a right pratt." the left-hand Weasley twin said.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Hermione dubiously asked.

"Aw come on, you think anyone in Gryffindor hasn't noticed how you're out of the tower real early in the morning and don't come back till nearly curfew?" the other twin asked.

"Just leave me alone." Hermione told him. "I have enough trouble dealing with one Weasley without you three joining in."

"Listen, Hermione." Percy said. "House Gryffindor are supposed to be almost like a family. We're not as close as the Puffs, but we're no cowards and what kind of yellow git doesn't stand up for his own?"

"Apparently the sort called Weasley." Hermione said, standing up. She suddenly realised she really wished she had one of Harry's guns on her.

"Look, what we're saying is, if one Weasley does something wrong, it's the responsibility of all the Weasleys to..." Percy started, but Hermione wasn't listening any more.

Instead, she'd grabbed her notebooks and fled the library.

"... oh Hell." The left-hand twin, Fred Weasely, muttered.

"Fred... Perce... this is bad, isn't it?" His twin brother asked.

"Yes." Percy said. "What in Merlin's name has Ron being doing to her?"

"We'd better make sure he gets his head on straight." George agreed with a grim nod.

"Yeah." Percy said.

The family Weasley lived by three simple rules. Rule One was, family first. Rule Two was, no making the family look bad.

And Rule Three was, muggle-borns have it too rough anyway.

"We'd better have a word with Ron." Percy said.

"Yeah." the twins chorused.

Better they handle this than their parents having to; Arthur was too nice to really hammer the point home, and Molly would go completely overboard.

"What's all this noise?" the librarian, Madam Pince, scathingly queried.

"Sorry Madam Pince, we'll pipe down." Percy said.

"You'd better. This is a library, not a madhouse."

The trio of redheads nodded.

"Please keep these books together for Hermione Granger, Madam Pince." Fred quietly requested. "Our brother's got her real upset and she ran off."

The librarian's disapproving look vanished like an illusion as she realised what had been happening.

Weasley family justice was well known to the staff of Hogwarts.

"I'll do that, young man." she said. "You run along now."

"Yes, Madam Pince." Fred said, and the trio of brothers departed the area, directing meaningful glances at one another.

-/- Fragmentation; same day; would flow better with another scene in here -/-

"Excuse me, Mr Potter..."

"What do you want?" Harry growled as soon as he recognised the fiery shock of ginger hair atop Percy Weasley's head.

"I want to know what my youngest brother's been playing at so as the twins and I can get him to sort his act out." Percy bluntly stated. "Look, Gryffindors do not bully Gryffindors. A bully is a coward, and we are not cowards. Ron's forgotten that. He's made your friend Hermione scared of all Weasleys and it's up to me and the twins to get his head out of his arse. To do that, we need to know what he's been doing, and Hermione won't talk to us."

"I don't know much." Harry growled. "What I do know is it's his fault that troll nearly got her and I wasn't joking when I said I'll smash his face in if he keeps picking on her. You better watch out too, I've heard it's a prefect's job to stop the other kids in his house being twats and you better do your job or there'll be trouble. I don't like what I've been seeing you Gryffs get up to and if it keeps going on someone's gonna need their feet taken outta their earhole. That Ron better stay away from Hermione and my Puffs or he's gonna get his attitude adjusted big-time, there ain't nobody picks on my friends."

"There's no need to threaten me, Potter." Percy said, slightly surprising Harry by not sounding angry – instead, he sounded apologetic. "When one Weasley's being a twit, it makes the whole family look bad – and that just isn't done. We'll give Ron a pointed reminder, and that's a promise."

Harry thoughtfully contemplated that for a moment.

"You better." he said. "Coz I don't care about that stuff with her parents not being able to do magic, she's nice and there ain't nobody picks on my friends."

"Count on it." Percy told him. "We keep our promises."

Harry's searching look lasted a few moments, and then the Boy-Who-Lived nodded gravely.

"Okay." He said, and Percy headed for the Gryffindor table with an answering nod.

Susan and Hannah, seated either side of Harry, gave each other meaningful glances.

As for the upper-year Hufflepuffs, they were thinking something quite similar to what was going through the two first-year girls' heads. Even 'Don't-call-me-Nymphodora' was taking notice.

There was a little-used tradition when it came to a Puff's closest friends. They'd have to discuss this with Professor Sprout at the next House meeting.

Harry spent a few long moments glaring at his dinner plate, then muttered something Snapeish-sounding and went back to eating.

-/- Minor fragmentation; extend last scene to show Harry's evening. Next scene needs lead-in -/-

"Bloody Hell!" Ron croaked, going as white as a sheet, and his trio of brothers' worry immediately evaporated.

Ron had always been as transparent as a window.

"I... oh crud, sure I yelled at her a bit, but... I, oh boy, she nearly got got by that troll?" The youngest Weasley brother slumped forwards, burying his face in his hands. "Oh bloody hell, I've been a right git..."

"What'd you say to her anyway?" Fred asked.

"Well, I can't really remember." Ron admitted. "It wasn't much, I know coz I always remember when I've really chewed someone out, we've said worse to each other over who got the last sausage."

"When it comes down to it we're a pretty rowdy family, Ron." Percy said. "I guess being an only child she's not nearly as used to yelling matches as we are."

"Fred... George... Perce... how the bloody hell am I gonna make this okay?" Ron asked, running his hand back through his hair.

"I've heard that Malfoy twat and his mates going off at her." Fred suggested. "How about you do what we shoud've been doing all along and cut the great git down to size next time he starts in on her?"

-/- Fragmentation; at a similar time... Both scene above and scene below need expansion at this end -/-

"Harry..."

"Wassup Hermione?" Harry breezily asked, and then his flippant attitude vanished like dust before a storm as he recognised the expression on Hermione's face.

"Look, if you carry me off will I not have to stay at the Gryffindor dorms any more?" she asked.

"Why's that?" Harry asked, immediately concerned.

"It's nothing." Hermione sounded way to hurried when she said that. "I just... I just wish I hadn't talked the Sorting Hat into putting me in Gryffindor."

"Well, yeah." Harry rose to his feet. "If I carry you off well obviously you've gotta stay at my lair instead of anyplace else, it's how a damsel being a captive in a big ferocious dragon's lair works, I can get you a chain or something if that helps."

"Oh, good," Hermione said, "I'd like you to carry me off, Harry."

He didn't need to be told twice.

-/- Slight fragmentation; description of flight needed. These two scenes should run together -/-

Hermione took the time to examine her surroundings.

The cave itself looked to have started out as one of those worn where an underground waterway comes out of a cliff; the stream responsible for it's formation ran through a deep channel in the floor, through a grille in the wall at the lip of the cave, and plunged to the river far below.

(It wasn't really that far, but a couple of hundred feet looks like the edge of the world when you're a shortish twelve-year-old who's afraid of heights.)

However, it had very visibly been heavily modified by a mix of cutting at rock and, from the look of it, melting rocks together.

The atrium area she was currently within had been widened and it's floor levelled, and a wall that would be chest hight for Hermione's father had been made by piling rocks and then slagging them together across the lip of the cave.

Four passages had been hacked from solid stone, disappearing into the shadows, and a slight but noticeable warm breeze was blowing from them; it was all lit by electric lights tacked onto the walls.

The source of electricity was immediately obvious as the small waterwheel, connected to a generator, that was spinning away turned by the fall of the stream in the floor; it was enclosed by more fused-together stones and a metal grille, and the stream had been covered over by another metal grille and had a thick, heavy shag-pile carpet – the utterly luxuriant type that tries to swallow your feet up to the ankles – folded away from where it could be used to cover the grille.

There was other furniture; the beat-up and sagging sofa upon which Hermione was seated, three equally battered old armchairs, a hefty wooden kitchen table surrounded by straight-backed chairs, several glass-fronted cabinets containing assorted gem-studded nick-nacks, immensely heavy curtains that could be drawn across the mouth of the cave, what looked like a bunch of standard Hogwarts wardrobes and dressers, a great black-and-white enamel Rayburn with a fire merrily crackling away within and heat rolling off it, and a couple of large metal cabinets had been bolted to the wall at the other end of a polished (and stuff-encrusted) wooden counter-top from the fire; the counter-top had a very old-fashioned porcelain sink set into it and cupboards and a fridge below.

The entire chamber had a severe case of flatsurfaceitis(5); there were random bits and pieces ranging from toy guns to massive leather-bound books to Lego models to bottles of carefully-labelled potions to great sheaves of doodles and writings to a scattered tangle of maps covered in notations to a huge globe to housebrick-sized gold bars, scattered absolutely everywhere on every available flat surface including, in places, the floor.

It might as well have had 'Scatterbrained preeteen child lives here' written on it in large neon letters.

"Okay," she said, looking around, "I guess that's me carried off, but, um, couldn't you have waited long enough for me to get my stuff?"

"... oh. Oh! Um, sorry, I kinda didn't think of that." Harry admitted.

-/- Slight fragmentation; needs bridge. These two scenes should run together -/-

"Suze... what is it Harry means to you?"

Suze's expression immediately changed to a look Hermione had seen before.

It was the kind of expression she was used to seeing out of the corner of her eye when she was curled up by the gas fire in the living room with a good book on a cold night and her mother looked at her – a slight soft smile, the sort that told you that all was well with the world.

"In the beginning, he terrified me." the centauress admitted. "I believed he was a dread beast, come to lay waste to all, I believed he would devour me – but where we expected a fell destroyer, we found a kindly child. Then, as I was first becoming fond of him, he saved the lives of Father, Grandfather, warriors of my kin – two of my uncles, my eldest brother, one of my cousins – Father had spoken words that should surely have earned all of my kin Harry's enmity, yet he struck against the Spider Plague as if it was his own kin and home they threatened. Until that time but three summers past, we were sore pressed; myself I have lost four brothers, a sister, my mother, five uncles, two aunts and twelve cousins to those fell beasts within the span of the seasons I recall for myself, yet since the day the Great Wyrm descended upon their hordes they have not spilt one drop of centaur blood. By debt of blood unspilled, he is one of us, a young warrior of the Black Woods Clan, and his foe is ours – yet at the same time he is the Great Wyrm of these lands, and thus lord of all he sees. To our knowledge it is a situation unique within all the tales of our past, and... I would wish to see good come of all this. At the side of our Great Wyrm, perhaps we might no more need to cower and hide in forgotten corners of this world; perhaps with his aid we might someday be able to walk the paths your kind have forged with our heads held high. And his aid is something that, once granted, I have never known to be withdrawn; House Hufflepuff suits him well, for he is steadfastly loyal to those he has deemed his own."

"You love him, don't you?" Hermione checked.

"Though they call him my master and me his vassal... he is like a son, or a younger brother." Suze said. "And to him, it is as if I am the elder sister he never had... or the mother he never knew. Perhaps someday there may be more to it than that; we might read the portents of the stars, but the future is a secret untold even by Selene. Night brings naught but hints to the paths we might travel, and who can truly know what the omens we have seen seek to tell us?"

With a tremendous blast of cold air and a crash of talons against rock, Harry landed in the mouth of the cave, flanked by a trio of broom-riders; Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Sprout.

"I confess I had wondered at what time the blasted reptile would decide to increase the breadth of his collection." Snape stated, leaning his broom against the wall across the lip of Harry's lair. "My congratulations on your promotion in life, Miss Granger; he is a dratted dragon and a wretched lizard, and he quite assuredly needs the aid of level heads such as your own to aid him in avoiding any further foolishness in the future. Don't you say one word, you daft boy! Recall that as this is term-time you are not entitled to answer your teachers back?"

"Okay, Mr Snape." Harry grumbled. "Old sourpuss."

"Insolent glutton!" Snape snapped.

"Foul-tempered poltroon!" Harry snapped back.

"Blithering cross-eyed pillock!" Snape declared. "Ha! You're still thirty years too soon to out-insult the master, boy!"

"How about 'Slobbering armpit-sniffing reprobate'?" Harry asked. "That's a pretty good one."

"Perhaps." Snape allowed. "Hmm, yes, I'll bear that in mind for the next time Goyle or Longbottom foul up."

The irritable potions master noted the way Hermione was now looking at him as if he'd grown a couple of extra heads.

"What? Do you quite seriously believe I have no sense of humour, Miss Granger? Odd; I'd thought you better suited to House Ravenclaw."

"You do realise Fillius would become insufferably smug if he heard you saying that, don't you Severus?" McGonagall checked, looking amused and blowing Hermione's mind in the process – the Gryffindor first-year had never seen her Head of House wearing anything but a stern expression before.

"Naturally, and I likewise realise he would be looking insufferably smug at your expense, Minerva." Snape said, whereupon McGonagall blew Hermione's mind again by grinning broadly and directing a two-fingered offensive gesture Snape's way; more mind-blowage followed as Snape casually returned the compliment. "Now that we're done demonstrating to Miss Granger that we're just as human as any, perhaps we should be discussing business?"

"That's a good idea, Mr Snape." Harry said, flipping the flap of carpet over the stream and settling himself in the middle of the room. "I think you lot just completely blown Hermione's mind."

"Aye now," McGonagall said, "Seems tae me it's an open and shut case. It's nae like our Harry's ever changed his mind now, is it?" Hermione's mind blew yet again when she heard that; she was used to a faint Scottish accent coming from her Head of House, but not that tangled knot of mild-but-distinct Scottishisms.

"I change my mind sometimes, Mrs McGonagall." Harry said, sounding a bit defensive. "Usually when I find out I've been really wrong about stuff, because not changing your mind when you find out you're wrong is... is..."

"The mark of a wilfully-ignorant blundering pillock?" Snape helpfully suggested, and Hermione realised she was starting to get used to having her mind blown.

"Is the mark of a wilfully-ignorant blundering pillock, thankyou Mr Snape, and I ain't no way one of those!" a certain dragon stated.

"Well then, since that's the case I'd hope you'll bring my first-year there down from this lair o' yours fair lessons, laddie." McGonagall sternly lectured, wagging a finger and failing to contain the smile.

"I don't think Hermione'd let me not." Harry said, scratching his head.

"What I want to know," Hermione said, "Is why nobody's asking my opinion."

"Well don't just sit there and glare then, girl." Snape said, cocking an eyebrow. "I trust you've realised the ramifications of this?"

"Well why exactly does everyone seem to think I'm going to have a big situation about this?" Hermione snapped, then went rather pink as she realised she'd just snapped at a teacher. "Look, I made sure I knew what I was getting into. It's not a big deal, you don't need to be so serious about it."

"And tell me, Miss Granger, why precisely do you believe we would be taking this seriously if it was not?" Snape asked, eyebrow remaining cocked.

"... what?"

"I know you are neither hard of hearing nor an imbecile, young lady."

"Mr Snape, if you don't stop growling at my damsel right now I'll be forced to lick your head." Harry stated, authoritatively pointing at Snape.

"Dratted dragon!" the man roared, glaring back. "I am attempting to impart the gravity of this situation to Miss Granger and you are not helping!"

"And you're growling at my damsel, which ain't helping neither!" Harry growled back – his voice had dropped below the range of tones possible for a human's speech, becoming this spine-chilling basso profoundo snarl.

"Tha both o' yeh eejits cool doon richt tha noo!" (6) McGonagall roared, giving Hermione her latest shock – the transfiguration mistress's voice had plummeted from it's usual faint accent to a rolling Scots brogue as thick as week-old porridge.

"We are attempting to have an intellectual disagreement here, Minerva." Snape stated.

"An' yeh kin cool doon or yeh kin tak yair backside raight tha fook doon tha castle, yeh bludy chewchter!" (7) McGonagall fairly growled, then spun round and stabbed a finger at Harry. "An' yeh too, laddie! Quit yair blatherin' on an' act lak a responsible dragon fair a change or I'll hae tae gie yeh a guid clip roond yair lug!" (8)

"... Well, I suppose that's us told, eh Mr Potter?"

"Yeah, think so Mr Snape."

"Guid." (9) McGonagall said, her accent starting to fade. "Now I'll be having a wee word with Miss Granger in private. You four take yair backsides through there and wait till I tell yeh we're done."

"No, you and Hermione can go through there if you really think it's so important." Harry said, crossing his forelimbs.

"Oh aye?" McGonagall asked.

"Aye." Harry growled, glaring back. "I'm no gonna move on that, Mrs McGonagall, and if you think different, well, you're out of luck 'coz I don't trust nobody on this stuff."

"Looks like that's you told too, Minerva." Snape remarked, ignoring the venomous glare this earned him.

"Yeah." Harry stated, voice dropping back to that bone-chilling snarl. "It is."

There was a short pause as everyone else in the room (bar Suze) reminded him or her self that they were dealing with a multi-ton magic-resistant dragon who tended to be a bit touchy about his treasures, young ladies included.

-/- Slight fragmentation; needs bridge. These two scenes should run together -/-

"Miss Granger, you misunderstand me. The Sorting Hat sorts first by customer preference, second by whatever the customer in question truly believes to be the most important; loyalty, courage, knowledge, or ambition. If it sorted by whatever was strongest in an individual's personality, you would most assuredly be a member of House Ravenclaw due to your all-encompassing and quite insatiable thirst for information. That, not some nebulous 'good enough', is why I believe you should have been a Ravenclaw, or possibly a member of my House courtesy of your most immediately apparent ambition to know all that there is to be known; it is for the same reason that I believe most of the House I have the misfortune to be forced to attempt to administrate should have been sorted to Hufflepuff as they are largely execrable sheep wont only to obediently follow along in the footsteps of whichever imbecile was foolish enough to first blunder along a certain course, just as most of the current residents of House Hufflepuff should most assuredly have been members of my house as they are cunning little rapscallions indeed."

"What about Harry?" Hermione asked. "What house should he have been, using your way of meaning 'should'?"

"That is difficult to say." Snape admitted. "Either House Gryffindor as he is one iota short of fearless, House Hufflepuff as he is quite fanatically loyal to any whom he has reason to deem a friend and never mind his remorseless and in fact relentless ferocity in the protection of one such as yourself whom he has declared a damsel, or House Ravenclaw as he has an utterly insatiable appetite for raw knowledge; one would have to be a Sorting Hat to say for certain. The only house to which I can categorically state he is unsuited is my own as his sole ambition is to be the perfect dragon by his own peculiar definition of 'dragon', though I have cause to believe he is beginning to expand his personal ambitions; all things change with time."

"You think the House system is broken, don't you?" Hermione checked.

"Hmm; perceptive too. I reiterate myself, you are quite tolerable. Indeed, Miss Granger, the House system as it stands is quite decidedly broken. It is my belief that we would all be better served by such a system if the students were to at the barest minimum be re-sorted after each two years of their time at Hogwarts, preferably at the beginning of each week; opinions can change with astounding speed and fluidity during one's youth. I realise that the ideal would be quite difficult to implement, but it is not yet a crime for a man to dream."

-/- Slight fragmentation; same evening; further professors have arrived, and the professors are doing parts of their Harry-related research at Harry's lair-/-

"This is really a rather bad map." Hermione said.

"And where would you suggest we obtain better?" Snape checked, cocking an eyebrow. Something in his manner gave the feeling he thought he knew what was coming.

"Well, there's the Ordinance Survey maps, or maybe something like a National Geographic atlas." Hermione explained. "I'm starting to think that muggles are quite a lot better at map-making than wizards, and if there's any islands or something that're hidden from muggles we could easily add them to a good map. It's one of the things I've noticed that're most different between the wizarding world and the muggle world – measurements are much, much more precise and consistent in the muggle world."

Snape considered that for a long moment, then glanced at Sinestra.

"You truly believe we require accurate maps?" he checked.

"The more accurate the better." Sinestra said. "If we're to plot these, these 'nodes' for want of a better word, accurately enough to find them on the ground..."

-/- Slight fragmentation; after the professors have left, Snape having promised to acquire better maps -/-

"The professors are very different when they're not, you know, in school. Especially Professor McGonagall." Hermione mused.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I know. I asked Mr Flitwick – not Professor Flitwick because he wasn't being a Professor then – about it, and he says there's a very important difference between when they are and aren't being Professors. He says that when they're at the school and being Professors they've got to be the respectable authority figures because the kids need respectable authority figures, so when they're not at the school that's when you get to know the real people instead of the Professor masks they use for their jobs."

"... that makes sense."

"Yeah, doesn't it just? And, y'know, I think I get the point. I mean, I've never heard Mr Snape laugh when he's being Professor Snape, and I've never heard Mrs McGonagall call someone 'yeh beg eejit' (7) when she's being Professor McGonagall, and I've never seen Mr Flitwick do shadow-puppets when he's being Professor Flitwick – it's like they're completely different people and I see how people who've only seen them being Professors are going to think they're these serious people who you've got to respect and everything, and I figure that it's how you get kids to take you seriously about this whole education thing."

"It's obvious that you respect them, Harry, so why do you think other people wouldn't?" Hermione asked.

"I respect them because of who they are, because of what they can do." Harry said. "I respect Mr Flitwick because he's a three-times Olympic-gold-medal duellist. I respect Mrs McGonagall because she's a lovely old lady who can turn a desk into a real live pig as easy as I can eat a rasher of bacon. I respect Mr Snape because he's invented more potions than I've had hot dinners and because he ain't scared of nothing at all. I respect Mr Hagrid because he knows exactly how to find the bad bit and get oil onto it when my skin gets really itchy and dry because my body's growing too fast for it even when I don't tell him where I'm itching. I even respect Mr Filch because even though he can't do any magic he manages to keep the whole castle neat and tidy despite people like those Weasley twins making a real mess, and because anyone who's nice to cats can't be all bad."

"I didn't take you for a cat person."

"Cats are okay, you know where you stand with a cat – if you make a cat cross the cat's gonna tell you so right off and same goes for if a cat likes what you're doing."

-/- Fragmentation; somewhere between these two scenes running together and a week or two separating them -/-

"Dad looked at the laws about guns after we met you at Daigon Alley, Harry, and, well, you do know those are illegal, apart from that one," Hermione pointed at the Lee-Enfield that Harry was holding, "Which is illegal if you don't have a gun license for it and you're not old enough to have one of those, so, um, you do know those are illegal, right?"

Harry grinned as he patted the Lee-Enfield. "Well yeah, it's illegal for humans to own much guns but I'm a dragon so I don't gotta worry about that stuff."

"... what?" Hermione was really starting to wonder about his mysterious ability to randomly befuddle her.

"Well they ain't written no laws about whether porpoises are allowed to own guns, have they? And they ain't written no laws about whether dragons are allowed to own guns, have they? And they ain't written no laws about whether centaurs are allowed to own guns, have they? They've only written laws about whether humans and goblins are allowed to own guns, and since I'm not a human and I'm not a goblin then laws about humans and goblins ain't laws about me." Harry elaborated.

"... I don't think that's how it works, they're laws about people. A porpoise isn't a person, it's an aquatic mammal. You're a person, you talk too much not to be, and centaurs and goblins are definitely people."

"No, porpoises are people, they swear too much not to be. And Madam Axetalon says those laws don't apply to not-human people. She oughtta know, she's a goblin so she's a not-human sorta person, and anyway goblins got a whole lot of laws for themselves. Didja know it's illegal for a goblin older'n ten not to own any guns? And since I'm a declared asset to goblinkind it's illegal for me not to have any guns too."

"That's different from muggle law, Harry."

"No it ain't, the goblins have been conglomerating- contradicting- centreb- um, sending, yeah, sending soldiers to fight wars and stuff with the muggle army since the Boer War an' they're officially a regiment of the British Army an' it's all written down in laws and stuff even if most people don't know about those laws because people who don't glow ain't supposed to know about goblins, Mr Shatteraxe says it's classificated top secret because the wizards would really freak out if they knew."

"... oh. Wait, what, porpoises swear?"

"Lots and lots and lots, I ain't never heard a porpoise say stuff without part of it being 'fuck'."

"How can you hear porpoises say things?"

"Well I found out porpoises are well sweary same time as I found out them whistly noises they make is talking, it was that time I went for a swim in the bay and bumped into one and he got so in my face and squealed at me so hard I thought I'd better check out if his squeals meant anything but thweet, and when I told Mrs McGonagall what he'd called me she said she'd haveta scrub my mouth out with soap if I swore like that any."

"... check out if it meant anything?"

"Well yeah, if I concentrate real hard on talking I don't understand I start understanding it."

"... that must be fascinating. What did the porpoise say?"

"He said... 'You fucking great sack of fucking shit! Can't you see I'm fucking swimming here, fish-face? I'll take a fucking dump down your fucking blowhole if you don't get your fat fucking arse the fuck out my way, you fuck! What're you fucking goggling at me for, fuck sake, you're just like all those fucking beach-swimming fucks, too fucking retarded to understand a fucking word a dude fucking says, aren't you? Fuck off outta my fucking way, fish-face!' So I said 'Fuck you, fish-face.' back the same way as he said stuff and got outta his way, he got all sorta surprised and cross about that and started really yelling at me. Well after a while I sorta learned howta talk porpoise by mistake, I think it was while I was waving him around by the tail."

"... uh." Hermione mumbled.

"Porpoises really don't like being called fish-face, by the way. It makes 'em real cross." Harry solemnly warned her. "I hadta grab Two Bubble Fucking Spiral by the tail and fly around waving him about before he stopped trying to get me whenever he saw me, he went swimming off Skye way after that and I ain't seen him since, my porpoise friends call him a right sore loser."

"... how did we get from gun laws to porpoises?"

"Well I dunno, you asked stuff about porpoises being sweary. Anyway, I gotta do my rifle drills."

"Well, okay then." Hermione said.

Harry set to determinedly posing with his Lee-Enfield in front of a big mirror, shifting it around while keeping an eye on his reflection and managing to look like he knew what he was doing, all of which seemed fairly pointless.

"What're you doing, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"It's very important to hold a rifle right." Harry explained. "Partly because guns are kinda dangerous if you aren't careful with 'em and partly because nothing gets Sergeant-Majors angrier than someone holding a gun wrong and there is absolutely nothing scarier than an angry Sergeant-Major."

"Um, Harry, what's a Sergeant-Major?" Hermione asked. "I, well, don't know much about the army."

"Well, I've read bits and pieces about it and I'm not quite sure if it's the same with the goblins as it is with human armies, but as far as I know there's a Sergeant-Major for every regiment and he's who makes sure that the whole regiment is properly prepared and organised for any fighting, stuff like discipline and drills and that stuff, he makes sure everyone keeps their equipment in good condition and he makes sure nobody gets sloppy because when soldiers get sloppy it helps the baddies win." Harry told her. "The only things I'm sure about is that even Generals and so on act like they respect the Sergeant-Majors, if something needs to be done in an army the way to make sure it gets done is to tell a Sergeant-Major about it, and they are very very good at being scary. They have to be, it's a part of their job. And, y'know, from what the goblin solders I know have told me, if a Sergeant-Major says you're 'barely competent' at something it's his way of saying 'you're doing okay', and if he says you're 'showing acceptable competence levels' then it's his way of saying 'good job there'."

"... oh." Hermione said.

Harry contemplated the Lee-Enfield for a moment.

"The last time he was here, Sergeant-Major Hooktalon said I was 'almost competent' at handling a gun." the currently human-form dragon stated. "And, y'know, I really don't want him to be disappointed next time I see him because I think he'd go bananas, and since he's gonna be on the train tonight, well..."

Hermione considered all that for a few moments. What kind of awe-inspiring being would a dragon call 'scary'?

She resolved to be very very polite to any Sergeant-Major she ever met.

This meant it was important to learn to determine who was and wasn't a Sergeant-Major, which meant...

"Harry, do you have any books about goblin uniforms and so on?"

"Sure I do. They're in Orzet – that's the proper name for what wizards call gobbledegook – but I've got an Orzet-to-English translation dictionary." Harry said, pointing at his bookcase. "They're on the top shelf at the left-hand end, the dictionary's at the very left end and the book about goblin military organisation is third from the left."

"Mind if I...?"

"Sure, go ahead." Harry said, once more visibly delighted at finding someone who loved books just as much as he did.

As Hermione went into research mode, Harry returned to practising his rifle drills in front of the mirror.

-/- Fragmentation; maybe 2-3 days gap -/-

Most of the young people who pass through Hogwarts never stop to think about supply lines; how the makings of dinner get from point A (production) to point B (the table) isn't the sort of thing your average teenager worries about, and that applies whether or not the teenager in question is magically gifted.

Most of them, if asked, would shrug and say, who cares? Others would guess it was something to-do with portkeys or maybe house-elves.

And the same goes for most of anyone who isn't in the supply, haulage, or retail businesses. Most people have no idea how their dinner got from point A to point B, beyond muttering something about the shop and a farm and, er, lorries?

Once again, that applies whether or not the people are magically gifted, though your average witch or wizard on the street would readily assume that their dinner made it's way to the shop at which they purchased it via a portkey or maybe a house-elf.

Very few witches or wizards would suggest that the supplies they took for granted came via truck or train, depending on where they called home; that few would be entirely correct.

For the population of Hogsmeade, life wouldn't grind to a halt if the daily train from London didn't come – but it would become harder.

Just for the nearby school at Hogwarts, keeping a few hundred hungry teenagers fed and the castle lit and heated gulps its way through several tons of supplies every day. Potions classes at a school such as Hogwarts requires nearly a ton per week of ingredients; cleaning supplies are used up by the gallon day in, day out, and an average school year will require sixteen tons of parchment, eight thousand gallons of ink, and nearly a hundred thousand quills.

In the past, Hogwarts and the town of Hogsmeade were supplied by therestral-hauled flying cart and by relays of house-elves – but then the muggles drove the railway through the mountains, and enterprising wizarding eyes turned to the mighty iron horses that pounded down those glens.

And they turned to the cost. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed that the railway worked out cheaper than therestrals, house-elves, or portkey production – especially if you used a drake-dog to get a diminished load of coal to fire the boiler. Drake-dogs were a jumpy and excitable lot, but as long as you had something to bank their flames and someone's attention to keep them focused on the job, they were just the business for raising a good head of steam – and a drake-dog might eat as much food as four house-elves, but one drake-dog and a few tons of coal was far cheaper than the hundreds of house-elves that it would take to keep Hogsmeade and Hogwarts supplied.

Perhaps it could have been done by portkey – or perhaps not. A portkey didn't last forever; after a dozen or so trips it would begin to wear out, and to produce a portkey required costly materials to anchor the enchantments, materials that were burned away as the portkey wore.

Hogs Haulage was founded late in the year 1912, partially in response to a Ministry request intended to reduce Obliviation expenditures without shelling out for more portkeys or house-elves. The first train to Hogsmeade entered the town on the fifth of April 1913.

At first, the train was a weekly event, split off from a muggle freight train in Fort William and dedicated to Hogwarts. But it didn't take long for the enterprising soul who'd established that service to spread his advertising to the businesses of Hogsmeade; a town of ten thousand greedy wizards can guzzle it's way through many's the ton of supplies per day, and if you live in Hogsmeade ambling down to the local shops takes less effort than Apparating to Diagon Alley.

In the years since, those trains have become a daily visitor to that gradually growing wizarding town. Every day, the train comes to Hogsmeade bringing stock for the town's shops, ale and firewhiskey for the pubs, food for the inhabitant's tables, packing cases of potions ingredients, kegs of butterbeer, coal for the household fires, ton after ton of pumpkins to be pressed for juice, supplies for the castle, and those few passengers unable to Apparate and unwilling to Floo.

The train leaves Hogsmeade at nine o'clock sharp in the evening and travels all night, arriving in London at around seven the next morning; here a replacement crew arrive by Floo and the locomotive is handed over as the London shunters and freight handlers assemble the train that'll travel north; the crew that have driven all night return home by Floo, and the train departs London at nine in the morning, to arrive back at Hogsmeade at seven in the evening.

Two hours later, another crew will take another train, behind a different locomotive (Hogs Haulage has a roster of twelve locomotives of wildly varying age, and they are used in strict rotation) on their way south to London. Muggle or magical alike, freight is the blood that keeps civilisation alive.

Today, driver Jim Coates, his fireman Mac, their guard Ivor McIver and the crew drake-dog Smaugey had just completed receiving locomotive number 70015 – a British Rail Standard Class 7 Pacific by the name of Apollo – from their colleagues Keith Moss, Stanley Coates (Jim's younger brother) and Murdo Hagrid (the hag-blooded first cousin of the better-known Hagrid) and, having got done giving the loco a good once-over, were speaking to the shunting foreman about today's cargo as they watched a truly novel sight.

The Kings Cross shunting locomotive – a Hunslet 'Austerity' 0-6-0 saddle tank – was carefully moving down onto the mostly-assembled goods train with three oddly-painted and modified BR Mark 1 coaches. From the look of them, two were obviously Brake Gangwayeds but had their windows (small in the first place) mostly blocked up and covered with sturdy metal hatches; the one in the centre was some type of fully van-sided coach, maybe from the old travelling post office, and all, as well as being absolutely festooned with rivets, were crouched on their suspension, adequately demonstrating that, whatever their contents, it was just a tad heavier than what a BR Mark 1 coach usually carried.

And all three were painted an oddly familiar green and gold.

"What's the crack?" Jim asked, nodding at the strangely-painted coaches and calming ole Smaugey's nerves while he was at it; the drake-dog kept nearly flaming whenever the Hunslet chuffed.

"Gringotts bin settin' up somefin' up norf." the shunting foreman, a Londoner by the name of Kelly Brown, explained with a shrug. "That 'ere's the strong van, sixteen ton of valuables they got 'idden in it I 'eard. 'Em other 'uns got a couple dozen goblins in 'em, armed ter the teef I'll bet." He nodded firmly.

Jim dubiously peered in the open door on the side of one of the BG's as it rolled past him; he found a khaki-clad goblin dubiously peering back at him from around a cigarette and along the top of a decidedly threatening assemblage of metal pipes and boxes; Jim knew what crossbows did and anything that had a trigger was definitely bad news.

Come to think of it, he recognised the colour scheme; green and gold, the company colours of Gringotts.

"What'd they be takin' sixteen ton o' valuables to Hogsmeade for?" Mac asked, peering over Ivor's shoulder at the cargo manifest.

"Well that'll be vehicle number four," Ivor said, "Lemme see... sixteen point one five ton for... Harry Potter?"

"Yup." Kelly confirmed with a nod. "Sixteen ton, way I 'ear it this'll be right regular, they were 'aulin' it up by road but it's grown ter the point it's cheaper fer 'em ter send it by rail."

"Sixteen ton of valuables?" Mac boggled. "Ain't the Boy-Who-Lived what, eleven or twelve, just started up in Hogwarts and all?"

"Yup," Kelly said. "Me youngest's in 'is year she is, different 'ouse though, surprised the Richards outta me when my Lavender told me 'e'd ended up an 'Ufflepuff, allus figgerd 'e'd be a Gryffindor."

There was a dull THUMP and cloud of feathers as Smaugey flamed a pigeon that'd startled him during the meaningful pause; Jim gave him a clip round the ear, and the drake-dog let out an apologetic yip.

"Well I'd like ter know how he's earning hisself that kinda money." Mac said.

"Well I dunno much but 'e's got 'em goblins proppa 'et up." And Kelly headed over to what would be the rear end of the three coaches when the completed train was in motion.

Jim, Mac and Ivor contemplated the trio of green-and-gold coaches for a moment as Kelly busied himself checking they were properly coupled and braked to the fitted vans that formed the rear half of the train while one of his lads uncoupled the shunting loco from the leading Gringotts coach.

"Any word on how his load'll be handled up north?" Jim asked as Kelly walked back over and started waving the shunting loco to back up and get the next wagon.

"S'ter be picked up by some noo sub-branch 'em goblins 'ave set up in 'Ogsmeade, right 'ush-'ush it is." Kelly told him.

"Huh." Jim said, nodding. "Interestin'."

"Yer better start gittin' 'er ready ter 'ead norf." Kelly said.

"Aye, s'that sort o' time." Jim agreed, and he and Mac headed for 70015, eagerly followed by ole Smaugey.

The shunting locomotive hissed past with the second-to-last wagon – a four-wheeled refrigerated van laden with food for the kiddies at Hogwarts – as they walked; the only remainder was the train's solitary passenger coach, currently loading at the nearby platform. Wasn't usually many passengers, the eight they'd seen boarding today was more than normal, but there were enough across the year to pay for upkeep of the coach and make a little back so the service stayed.

"Got a funny sorta feeling about they goblins, Jim." Mac said.

Jim nodded. Thinking back, there'd been talk around the depot about more and more goblins taking the Hogsmeade train. Him and Mac's last run north, there'd been a whole gang of 'em, and hadn't the gaffer said something about the little buggers nosing round the office?

Well, whatever, it wasn't Jim's problem and nor was it Mac's. In about five minutes time they'd be backing 70015 down onto the train, and perhaps five minutes after that – no, a glance at Jim's watch showed it to be a bit over six minutes, they had a total of eleven minutes thirty seconds before the starting signal would clear – they'd be on their way home to Hogsmeade.

-/- Fragmentation; after a Potions lesson not long later -/-

"There's something I've been wondering about, Professor Snape." Hermione said. She was still a bit hesitant about asking him questions.

"Indeed? Let's hear it." the hook-nosed man said.

"It's about how you described aluminium oxy-nitride." Hermione said. "The bit about 'phlogiston'... I thought it sounded familiar from somewhere other than my Hogwarts books, so I got Mum and Dad to send me my old chemistry books and, isn't that part of an archaic theory about why things increase in weight when they burn? Something about something of negative weight being removed from the thing that was burning?"

"The comparative study of the histories of alchemy and chemistry is quite esoteric, Miss Granger, but it does so happen that you have enquired of the right alchemist; my journeyman's thesis was on that exact subject." Snape said with a slight nod. "And as it so happens, the explanation you seek is quite simple; at the time when the negative-weight theory ceased to be current, alchemical studies into the phenomena of fire showed that, rather than something of negative weight escaping from the burning substance, something of positive weight was being added to the burning substance by the flames. It was decided that the nature and behaviour of phlogiston had been incorrectly deduced. Over time, alchemy uncovered further effects of the reagent muggles call oxygen, but within wizarding circles the name 'phlogiston' stuck; you'll find that we are, as a people, unfortunately resistant to change."

"That's... well, that's actually very interesting, Professor Snape." Hermione said. "I, um, don't suppose I could read your thesis?"

Snape smiled ever so slightly, giving her quite the surprise; she was used to seeing smirks, sneers, scowls and snarls on his face, but not that faint smile.

"I suppose you could, young lady." he said, and unearthed a thick hand-bound book from his bookshelves; he spent a moment contemplating her, then placed it on the desk in front of her. "Care that you return this in good condition, Miss Granger; there are only two copies in existence."

He nodded slightly as she carefully picked it up.

To it's cover was riveted a brass plate, engraved with, 'Alchemy and Chemistry: A Comparison for the Educated', and below that in smaller letters, 'S. Snape'.

"I hope that you shall find the material within as intriguing as I did, Miss Granger." he remarked. "If you have trouble discerning the context, there are several superb texts on matters alchemical in the Hogwarts library and within that dratted dragon's private collection; there is a bibliography of texts I reference in the back of that volume you hold."

"Thankyou, Professor." she said, and there was that slight smile again.

-/-/-/-/-

Snape thoughtfully watched the girl go, and he wondered.

He knew that hungry look she'd had in her eyes when she looked at the copy of his thesis. He'd seen that same look in a mirror.

She was a competent enough brewer, for a barely-educated child, and she was quick and eager to learn; unlike the vast majority of students she never had to be told anything twice, and most of the potions she had brewed were easily of saleable quality. He wasn't sure if she had that spark of genius that separated the great from the merely good.

Yet.

"... hrmph, girl's wasted in Gryffindor."

At least Lily's boy got her out of that pit of poltroons before they turned her into a dunderhead.

-/- Fragmentation, to the tune of maybe two or three days; Ron has just (as planned) reacted explosively to Dracoisms-/-

"Look, I know I've said some dumb stuff and I'm sorry about that, I mean I didn't mean for you to nearly get skepled by a troll, I just... I know I'm pretty bad at charms and, well, I guess I kinda snapped when you reminded me, right, but anyway it don't matter for nothing because you're a Gryffindor and Gryffs are supposed to stick up for Gryffs and I know I'll probably get detention when McGonagall and Snape hear about this but I don't care because NOBODY says that sort of bollocks about Gryffindors!" the youngest male Weasley emphatically stated, stuffing his wand back into his back pocket.

Hermione stared at him for several moments, her opinion of him edging up from rock-bottom.

"I could have done that." she said.

"Wasn't the point." Ron told her, shrugging. "I mean, I owe you one, right, because I opened my gob like a great twerp and that nearly got you killed and my mum'd have my guts for garters if she thought I was being a bully!" He angled a thumb at the groaning heap of Slytherin in the corner. "I was being kinda like that slimy git and that's the last thing I wanna be, just gimme one chance and I'll try to sort my head out - and anyway next time I open my trap and say something dumb just tell me to shut my gob before I get my foot caught in it, 'kay?"

Hermione considered that, and then nodded.

"Apology accepted." she said, and headed for where she'd arranged to meet up with Neville and Harry.

Behind her, Ron spent a moment considering the gibbering Malfoy, then shrugged and planted his hob-nailed boot firmly between a set of goalposts.

"Don't mess with Gryffs, you slimy git!"

-/- Fragmentation; several scenes needed; another research session at Harry's lair is in progress, aided by the better maps -/-

"There's something missing." Sinestra finally said.

"I fail to see it." McGonagall stated.

"Look. For the pattern to make sense, we're missing two nodes. One at Avebury."

"The one we expected to find missing." Flitwick said with a nod.

"But there's another missing." Sinestra continued, and touched her quill to the big globe. "Just about... here. In the Sunda Strait, between Sumatra and Java."

"There's naught but a few small islands there." Snape stated, sliding the correct map across the table to Sinestra. "Perhaps if we plot it to this?"

Sinestra spent a few moments making a rapid-fire series of calculations, then a few more moments with ruler and compass, before sitting back.

"Assuming I've correctly factored the projection, it should be within this circle."

"There's naught but some volcanic rock called Anak Krakatau there." Snape said. "Likely miserable and storm-wracked."

"Did you say 'Krakatoa', Professor Snape?" Hermione asked, her attention jerked off her book.

"No, the name is Anak Krakatau." Snape informed her. By this time she was peering dubiously at the map.

"Oh my God, it is!" she declared.

"... I beg your pardon?"

"Krakatoa was an island in the straits between Sumatra and Java that erupted in, oh, 1882 I think – no, 1883, it was 1883. The island was almost completely destroyed by a series of volcanic explosions – I can't remember if it was three or four, it's been quite a long time since I read about it – anyway the explosions were audible in Australia and I can't remember whether it was four or five days later that they were still recording the pressure wave going round the planet." She made a rough scrawl on the map. "That's about the shape of the island that was there before the eruption if I'm remembering correctly."

"Someone give me the thaumometer graph readings for the years 1882, 1883 and 1884." Sinestra abruptly said, sounding downright alarmed; McGonagall, who was nearest to that shelf, hastily dug out the box files in question and handed them over. "Miss Granger, I'll need the exact date and local time at which these, these eruptions occurred."

"I shall arrange that." Snape said. "I'll be right back." and he Apparated away; Sinestra didn't react more than a nod and grunt.

"... why is it Professor Snape always seems to be who goes and gets what's needed if it's from the muggle world?" Hermione asked Flitwick, who she was standing next to, in a sotto voice.

"Severus," Flitwick said, "Was born and raised among muggles, in Sheffield if I do so remember correctly, and unlike most wizards and witches of his background he has maintained some contact with his roots."

Fifteen minutes later, when Snape got back, Sinestra had finished going through the scrolls from 1882 and was well into those from 1883; the potions' master had a softbound book under one arm, a place marked with his thumb; this he opened and placed on the table beside Sinestra.

"... thanks." she muttered, and (keeping her place in the scroll with one hand) had a quick read, frowning to herself, before turning back to the scroll.

Everyone in the room instantly knew when she found it. Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes visibly bugged out, she went as white as a sheet, and she started very quietly swearing up a streak that'd make a sailor nod his respect.

"Sinestra?" McGonagall asked, sounding a tad taken aback; Hermione got the idea that this most definitely wasn't usual language for the homely-looking woman.

"Not yet!" Sinestra snapped, and McGonagall looked even more startled while the other woman started frantically scrawling notes.

Her hands were shaking.

"... Merlin's Balls..." Sinestra eventually said, breaking the tense silence as she slapped a specific scroll and the parchment she'd been making note upon down on top of the open book; she stood back and spent a moment visibly attempting to compose herself.

"How bad?" Dumbledore asked, serious to a truly unDumbledoreish degree.

"Miss Granger is quite correct." Sinestra said. "Look, the thaumometer spikes massively, reaching the limit of it's recording capabilities, four times throughout the afternoon and evening of August 26 by Hogwarts time in the year 1883, and from that point onwards has an overall 10.28 percent increase in the average."

"Are you saying that the anomalous surges of 1883 were caused by one of these nodes exploding?" Dumbledore asked, adjusting his spectacles and peering at the graph.

"What I'm saying is that, given the instantaneous propagation of any magical field, these four spikes – each one of longer duration than the previous – match the local times of the four volcanic explosions that completely rearranged the geography of the island of Krakatoa, and destroyed every living thing on that landmass!" Sinestra declared. "I need the thaumometer records from the summer solstice in 1988."

McGonagall had been expecting that; she was still standing beside the shelf of box files, and immediately handed the 1988 file to Sinestra.

It took moments for the lanky woman to find the correct scroll out of the fifty-two in the box, and on unrolling it, she stabbed a finger at the readings.

There was a massive spike aligning perfectly with the solstice moonrise, and once the readings came down from off the top edge of the scroll, the ambient levels had shown another marked increase.

"The recording of magical fields is not my area of expertise." Dumbledore said. "Is it possible to adjust the thaumometer to read higher?"

"It should be, but we'll have to replace the antenna." Flitwick said. "What we're looking at is a result of a mechanical limitation in the standard thaumometer designs laid down by Doctor Nicholas Flamel some centuries ago; the antenna spring, which controls the positioning of the needle and thus draws that line on the graph scroll, is a composite of steel and mithril. As you surely know, the mithril component of the spring responds to ambient magic by marginally altering in length; as it is anchored at each end to an inert section, this causes the antenna spring to flex, drawing the needle up and down on the graph scroll as the scroll, driven by the main drums, gradually turns beneath the needle. The needle is composed of steel with a coating of copper enchanted to maintain a specific temperature; this acts to blacken the regions of the heat-reactive parchment touched by the needle as it passes over the turning scroll. Altering the thickness of the components of the antenna spring – thinning the mithril should do it, but for reasons of sturdiness I suggest thickening the steel - should reduce the thaumometer's sensitivity, in the process increasing the maximum level it may record."

"We'd have to carefully re-calibrate the graph scrolls." Sinestra said.

"Indeed." Flitwick agreed with a nod.

"What's all this mean?" Hermione asked, swearing to herself that she'd start studying arithmancy at once.

"It means, Miss Granger, that the energies that transformed Mr. Potter to his current species are, as far as we can see, all but identical in nature to those that removed the island of Krakatoa from the face of the Earth." Snape told her.

Hermione whipped round and stared at the big globe, at the coloured pins denoting the positions and power of different nodes, and would ever after swear she'd felt the blood draining away from her face.

The positions of Avebury and Krakatoa matched the seemingly-chaotic pattern of the white pins they'd used to denote nodes whose power was too high to accurately calculate, and there were dozens of those white pins scattered across the globe. Every continent bore several, in fact every major land-mass bore at least one.

At least one gigantic time-bomb whose fuse nobody knew the length of.

"... oh my God." she choked. "There... there must be something we can do! There has to be!"

"There is." Snape said. "But to discern what, we must work out precisely what in Merlin's name Mr. Potter did to Avebury – and, further to the point, how precisely we might repeat it."

"And I wasn't properly conscious at the time." Harry muttered.

"Then I suppose I had better make inquiries of certain witnesses." Snape sighed, shaking his head.

"Witnesses... oh, you mean the Dursleys." Harry said. "Um, Mr Snape, I'm not really sure how to say this but they're too stupid to notice anything useful and even if they did they'd say they didn't."

"Forcibly mind-reading someone is illegal," Snape said, shrugging, "But I cannot say I care one jot about that."

"Are you saying you intend to legillimence them, Severus?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, Albus, I am. And don't you dare say one word about that, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore! I cannot say I particularly like this wretched planet we're stuck upon, but it's the only one we have and I do not intend to see it blown to pieces because some repulsive reject from the human race did not want to talk about anything outside a narrow-minded definition of normality." Snape grimaced. "And, to be quite frank, my skills as pertaining to this matter are strictly limited; we are well into the trackless wastes of high-energy thaumatics and I am an alchemist, not a thaumaturgist."

"Can't say fairer than that, eh Mr Dumbledore?" Harry mused.

"... indeed." Dumbledore said with a heartfelt sigh. "Just... Severus, don't make my mistakes. There are some means that the end does not justify."

"We have had this discussion before, and we shall continue to have to agree to disagree." Snape told him with a nod.

The headmaster sighed again and shook his head, abruptly looking very old, but didn't say anything else.

"... what was that all about?" Hermione quietly asked Harry.

"Remember what I said about the government not much liking people like us?" Harry checked; she winced a bit at the still-touchy subject and nodded. "It's stuff to-do with that. Everyone here thinks something's gotta be done about it, it's just some of us have different ideas about what to do about it and Mr Snape reckons if it won't change, blow the whole lot of it up."

"What do you think should be done about it?" Hermione asked.

"Well I reckon," Harry said, the now-familiar demented gleam reappearing in his eyes, "Anyone what messes with my friends is gonna be laughing on the other side a' their face when the time comes, and if they mess with my damsels screw waiting for the right time, they're dead meat. There ain't nobody messes with dragons, our foreheads are scarier than Arabia Carnivals."

-/- Major fragmentation. The professors have roughed out what Harry did to himself, the peak times of ley-line node activity, what needs done, and how to tell when a node is dangerously close to exploding; they are now surveying the world's nodes in search of danger points. In the interim, VoldieQuirrel has discovered the goblin blockade leading to the Philosopher's Stone, and bypassed it by burrowing through the wall on the floor below, directly into the Stone room; I have yet to figure out how he gets the Stone out the Mirror -/-

-/- Voldie om nom noms the Stone. Quirrel faw down go boom. Voldie quick-marches for a rematch with the Boy-Who-Lived -/-

"So. The 'boy-who-lived'. Ha! The Boy-Who-Won't-Live-Much-Longer!" the noseless man declared.

"Who the dickens are you, what do you think you're doing, how'd you find here to get in and which reprobate gave you a nosectomy?" Harry asked, justifiably put out.

"Are you an imbecile, boy?" the noseless man snarled. "I Am Lord Voldemort! I am here to finish what I started eleven years ago! And of course I found you, I am the Dark Lord! Nothing is outside of my reach!... what in Salazar's name is a nosectomy?"

"Huh? Nah, you can't be Moldevorts, he splattered himself when he bounced that Arabia Carnival thingy off my face." Harry said. He wasn't buying it, regardless of what Dumbledore said. "And since you found my lair you can't be half as stupid as someone who managed to splatter himself trying to kill a baby. Hey, and since getting your appendix took out is an appendixectomy I guess getting your nose took off is a nosectomy."

"... why am I discussing noses with the Potter brat?" the man who claimed to be Voldemort muttered. "Feh! Claim what you like, that mudblood bitch of a mother of yours did... something! A ritual! It caused my curse to rebound, not your face! And as I have progressed further along the path to immortality than any other all it succeeded in doing was the destruction of my body, which with the aid of my most excellent assistant Professor Quirrel who unfortunately perished in the process, I have regained!"

"No, onea my friends has a photo of the mess. Moldevorts was splattered all over the wall and the floor and the ceiling, I Mean He Went Splat! And when I splat things – well, or when my forehead splats things – They Stay Splatted!"

"I have only one thing left to say to you, foolish brat; Avada Kedavera!"

Harry only just had time to start saying, "Hey!" before the curse hit.

"And now," Voldemort declared, turning to Hermione, "For you, mudblood. You have the honour to be the second slain by me in this, my new-"

"You've got no idea how much that stings!" Harry loudly declared, sitting back up from where he'd fallen over. This was sufficiently strange to throw Voldemort off track mid-monologue.

"... actually, I have." the Dark Lord said. "By the way, Avada Kedavera."

He turned back to the quivering Hermione.

"Where was I? Ah yes, you-"

"I'm done talking to you, nobody just-" the Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Freaking-Die declared, popping back up.

"Avada Kedavera goddamnit."

"OW! Nobody just comes in here yelling-"

"AVADA KEDAVERA!"

"-Arabia Carnival and-"

"AVADIA KEDAVERA! WILL YOU PLEASE JUST DIE ALREADY?!"

"-Threatening my damsels!"

"AVADA KEDAVERA, AVADA KEDAVERA, AVADA KEDAVERA!"

The Boy-Who-Kept-Popping-Back-Up seemed to be staying down this time, so the highly irritated Dark Lord once again returned his attention to Hermione.

"Finally." he said. "As I was saying,"

That was when an enormous set of teeth descended on him; Harry, his piece said, had gone dragon-form and gone for the bite.

Harry chewed, swallowed, belched, then said, "Huh."

Hermione, who'd managed to get her teeth unclenched, let out a distinctly shellshocked-sounding squeak.

"S'funny. I didn't expect enemy to taste like pork." Harry continued. "Wonder who he was? Sure can't have been- ohboy, dragon gas."

With that, he whirled round, stuck his tail and backside out over the lip of his lair, and released what must have been the most epic fart in known history.

After all, farts are usually composed of methane or some such rancid gas, not screaming disembodied horribly-traumatised-due-to-just-having-passed-through-a-dragon's-digestive-tract shades of Dark Lords.

Hermione, still up against the wall where she'd been wishing there wasn't a Voldemort between her and the guns (not to mention her wand) blinked several times and managed to get out a stunned, "... uuuuh..." between struggling not to giggle and struggling not to freak out.

"Huh, that was weird." Harry remarked, bemusedly scratching his head – which, coming from a dragon the size of a not-so-small aircraft, looked somewhat strange to say the least – and peering after the spectral Voldemort. "Stuff doesn't normally do that when I eat it, I guess I'd better see what Mr Dumbledore thinks about that. Oh well, he tasted like pork so that's... um, er, ohboy, aw man, I don't think enemy went down so good."

As the Philosopher's Stone that Voldemort had earlier eaten went to work on the Boy-Who-Lived-Eight-Frickin'-Times' largely-iron physiology and caused him to pass out with a fever, the last thing he heard was Hermione frantically yelling his name; she'd come to the conclusion that this was most definitely a valid reason to pitch a fit of the screaming meemies.

-/-Slight fragmentation; a professor came up to Harry's lair to find out where he'd got to -/-

"What in Merlin's name," Snape murmured, "Has that blasted boy gone and done to himself this time?"

"He's... turning into gold." Hermione stated the obvious, her eyes like saucers.

"I have reasons to suspect he ate the Philosopher's Stone." Dumbledore said.

Snape looked like he was going to fly off the handle for a moment, glancing between concerned old man and very ill dragon, then abruptly let out a short bark of laughter.

"Oh Merlin, he would, wouldn't he? Idiotic reptile."

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Hermione asked.

"I am afraid that we have absolutely no idea, Hermione my girl." Dumbledore sadly told her. "We have, as it happens, never seen anything even remotely resembling this before; at this moment in time, all we can do is await Nicholas's arrival and hope."

-/- Slight fragmentation; Flamel has arrived -/-

"Hmm, most intriguing." Nick mused. "I'm sorry, Albus my boy; I have never seen anything like this before. I cannot say for certain exactly what is happening inside this creature's body."

"Will he be okay?" Hermione asked.

"... I cannot say for certain, young lady." Nick admitted. "Well, I suppose we'd better begin making more detailed examinations."

"Will you be okay?" Hermione asked him.

"Of course!" the youngish-looking man declared, obviously puzzled. "Why on Earth wouldn't I be?"

"I, uh, thought that since Harry ate your Philosopher's Stone..."

"Oh, pish-posh and tommyrot, it's easy enough to make another one and I won't need to worry about that for decades yet." Nick told her, waving it off. "It's not like I was at death's door when I made the first one. This'll be the fifth, they do tend to run out from time to time."

-/-Slight fragmentation; Snape has filled Slackhammer in on what's going on; a group of goblins arrive at the castle -/-

The quintet of goblins, Hermione reckoned, cut quite thoroughly impressive figures, for all that they were little taller than she. Four out of the five were dressed in ornate military dress uniforms and holding Lee-Enfield rifles in a letter-perfect present-arms parade rest; the fifth was somewhat overweight and clad in a Victorian-looking suit replete with silken cravat, precise top-hat, and mirror-polished cane. One of the four rifle-carriers had a white armband round his left bicep, marked by a blue double-helix; a second wore a smart peaked officer's cap and a truly ferocious expression.

From the two-part brass collar around the cane's handle, and the telltale bulge in the left armpit of the beautifully tailored suit jacket, the dapper goblin was carrying at the very least a sword-cane and a handgun. Hermione realised at once that Harry had not been at all joking about the importance of weapons to goblins.

"Mr Vice-Chairman Slackhammer!" Dumbledore declared, either pleased or doing a good job of faking it. "Welcome, welcome! And to your companions the same! What brings you to the hallowed halls of Hogwarts today, my dear fellow?"

The rotund goblin in the suit doffed his top-hat to the old man.

"Ah, Albus my dear fellow, we have come to understand that one of our most valuable of customers has been taken quite gravely ill." he said. "I am accompanied by Sergeant-Major Hooktalon," here the goblin with the peaked cap touched said hat with his right hand, "Medical Officer First Class Grindbone," here the goblin with the double-helix armband touched his helmet with his right hand, "Foundry Specialist First Class Flame-Eye," here the left-hand rearmost goblin touched his helmet with his right hand, "And Colour Sergeant Griphook," here the right-hand rearmost goblin touched his helmet with his right hand, "All of whom have shown a certain interest in the well-being of our eminently valuable customer Mr. Harry James Potter; it is our hopes that Medical Officer First Class Grindbone and Foundry Specialist First Class Flame-Eye might possibly be able to assist your own medical staff in ensuring the swift return to health of Mr. Potter, while Sergeant-Major Hooktalon and Colour Sergeant Griphook have volunteered themselves and their personnel to ensure the security and safety of Mr. Potter's valuable holdings in this area during his time of sorrowful incapacity."

"Mr Vice-Chairman SIR! Permission to speak, SIR!" the goblin with the peaked cap barked, saluting.

"Permission granted, Sergeant-Major." Everyone present noted the way Slackhammer was acting like he respected Hooktalon.

The Sergeant-Major saluted Dumbledore.

"Mr Dumbledore SIR, it is my belief that the young Lord Potter's enemies might take this opportunity to do his possessions and associates grief while he is unavailable to task himself to the defence of home and family, SIR! I confess I have some liking for the kid as he has shown himself to be acceptably competent in the handling of weapons and I would not wish to see his belonging unduly messed with behind his back, SIR!" Hooktalon barked.

"You're talking about his lair and the centaurs, aren't you?" Hermione butted in.

Hooktalon saluted her. "Yes, Ma'am! Indeed I am, Ma'am! The moment those centaurs threw their lot in with our valuable customer Mr. Potter their problems became our problems, Ma'am! And I'll be damned if me and my lads let some damned arachnid mess with a good kid's home and kin, Ma'am!"

"I hate bugs, Ma'am." Colour Sergeant Griphook remarked.

"I LOVE bugs!" Hooktalon roared. "They make for a splendid grill roast! Tasty with brown sauce! Colour Sergeant Griphook, you and your lads make damned sure Mr. Potter's belongings here at the castle don't come to grief, me and my lads will make damned sure Mr. Potter's belongings up the forest are secure, and we'll share the barbecue at the end of the deployment!"

Hermione noted how Dumbledore's smile had frozen.

"That sounds like a bargain to me, Sergeant-Major Hooktalon." Griphook said.

"Affirmitive," Hooktalon said, pausing to pound right fists with Griphook, "Looks like we've got ourselves a deal, buddy."

The Sergeant-Major whirled round and levelled a finger at the goblin with the red-cross armband.

"Medic Grindbone, you'd better make damn sure the young gentleman makes a swift recovery or there'll be Hell to pay!" he roared.

"SIR! Yes, SIR!" the medic barked.

Hooktalon nodded sharply. "Good! I know I may sound harsh, soldier, but it's a medic's job to make damned sure the troops under his care are fighting fit and right now Mr. Harry Potter is under your care, lad – you do your damn best and we'll see what we'll see! The young gentleman isn't just a nice kid, he's responsible for the biggest upswing in Gringotts' profit since the machine gun and before the machine gun the steam engine! That kid is worth nearly a million Galleons per month and if he kissed the dust even the vipers in our legal department would cry! You take damned good care of the young gentleman, and me and my lads will cover the rest! That all clear, soldier?"

"SIR! Affirmative, SIR!"

"Good! Get to work, then! HUT HUT HUT!" Were Hooktalon's lungs made out of leather or something?

Grindbone and the fifth goblin, presumably named Flame-Eye, quick-marched to stand in front of Dumbledore, whereupon both saluted.

"Medical Officer First Class Grindbone and Foundry Specialist First Class Flame-Eye, reporting for immediate duty, Mr Dumbledore SIR!" Grindbone barked.

"Thankyou, gentlemen." Dumbledore said, bowing his head to them. "Miss Granger, if you would show Medical Officer First Class Grindbone and Foundry Specialist First Class Flame-Eye to Mr. Potter at once?"

"Okay." Hermione said with a nod.

"Miss Granger Ma'am..." Hooktalon said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't you worry, lass," the Sergeant-Major gravely told her, "Those two are the best we've got, they'll have Mr. Potter back on his feet in no time!"

"And if we don't you needn't worry about vengeance." Grindbone said, pulling a single .303 bullet out of his uniform jacket and brandishing it. "Got one all set up with my name on it and all, lass."

"You keep that damned bullet stowed away, boy!" Hooktalon bellowed, getting in the way of Hermione's shocked reaction, and the shocked reactions of the other goblins. "Medics worth their armband are all to hard to find as it is without them blowing their own brains out! To Hell with what those wand-waving dandies think, I won't have any soldier under my command wasting himself – suicide is a coward's way out! Is that perfectly understood, soldier?"

"Yessir!"

"It'd better be!"

-/-Fragmentation, though not much at all-/-

"Mr Grindbone..." Hermione said, not taking her arms away from Suze's shoulders. The centauress was still all but inconsolable.

"The title's Medic, lass." the goblin reminded her. "What's up?"

"I was, well, wondering about what you said earlier about, you know, vengeance and all that, and... look, does goblin society hold a doctor responsible if the patient doesn't make it?"

"We don't." Grindbone said. "But when you're talking da- uh, dratted wizards dealing with us gobs, that's a different question. Mosta them bas- blighters figure if a gob can't save one of 'em it's the gob doing it on purpose."

"That's crazy."

The goblin chuckled and shook his head.

"I dare say us gobs get up to stuff just as crazy, lass. Any culture makes some damn-fool mistakes from time to time, scuse my Anglo-Saxon. And anyway, if I may be frank, if the young gentleman doesn't make it I wouldn't want to go through life as the goblin who failed to save the life of a customer responsible for a net twenty percent increase in Gringotts profit, we've seen civil wars over less. What would you know about matters medical anyway, lass?"

"My parents are orthodontic surgeons."

"You're the daughter of dentists? Well I'll be- ! I'll let the lads know, that'll win you some respect there ma'am! No sensible squaddie'll ever make a dentist angry, a gob's teeth are his final weapon and well worth caring for!"

"You guys are really into fighting, aren't you?"

"It's not so much that, ma'am. It's more a matter of... a male of your kind, chap by the name of Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, put it very well, 'Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.' Means 'Let he who desires peace prepare for war.' Respectfully ma'am, the Goblin Nation will always be prepared for war. We have to be; our children can sleep safely in their beds because there are well-trained and well-armed soldiers ready to make the other blighters bleed in their name."

Hermione nodded distantly, thinking of two book she'd read over the Christmas holidays, one called 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' and the other 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl'.

"I guess." she said.

"It's a safe guess, ma'am. The need for trained fighting gobs such as myself will never go away; any society needs someone to defend it from time to time, and the better prepared that someone is the better a job they'll do when the time comes."

"AhA!" Snape declared, looking up from Grindbone's microscope. "Take a look at this, ladies and gentlemen."

Hermione warily watched as Snape, Pomfrey, Flamel, Flame-Eye and Grindbone crowded round the microscope.

"Fascinating." Nick Flamel murmured. "And oddly... familiar."

"I've seen something like this before, sir." Grindbone said. "During the fighting in Egypt two years back, a young Rupert who got hit by the Midas curse in the second Giza raid. We tried all sorts, and in the end we just kept pumping him full of blood-cleansing potions and a couple potions for controlling the transmutation of metals till he pulled through."

"Indeed?" Snape asked. "Hmm, yes, this does quite resemble the Midas curse, doesn't it?"

"I concur." Nick Flamel said. "Poppy, Specialist Flame-Eye, your thoughts?"

"Looks like the young gentleman's metallurgy is altering itself from the ground up, m'lord." Flame-Eye said. "Seems similar to the forging of adamantium, but involving different metals. His magic-reactivity is shooting up like a mortar bomb, I'd say we need to concentrate on controlling that."

"Controlling the reaction itself, yes?" Madam Pomfrey checked.

"Yes ma'am. It's like Medic Grindbone said – Lieutenant Crackjaw's been composed of solid gold since '89 and it hasn't slowed him down. Made the lucky Rupert rich off his own skin-flakes too, ma'am." Flame-Eye rooted a couple of vials out of his webbing. "These here are the refinery potions we use to control the magic reactivity of adamantium during it's forging, it might be wise to test 'em on a sample of the young gent's blood at once, ma'am."

"I'll handle that." Madam Pomfrey said. "You boys keep on studying his bioalchemy – there's life in the lad yet."

"You okay there, ma'am?" Grindbone asked Hermione.

"Yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay." she assured. "I'm just worried about Harry."

"Aye, and so am I." the goblin told her. "One discovery stemming from the young gentleman's bioalchemy has netted the Goblin Nation enough money we're cycling in new armaments a decade early – and who knows what other miracles his health might lead to?" He started once again spreading assorted tools out on the countertop beside the microscope. "Here, you'll know the names of this equipment, aye ma'am?"

"Sure I do." Hermione said; and indeed she did, there was nothing there that wasn't either clearly labelled or familiar from the times she'd helped her parents at their dental practise.

"Good, good." Grindbone said, nodding. "I'll be concentrating on checking over what's happening inside the young gent's body, you pass me equipment as I ask for it, it'll help keep your mind occupied ma'am. Sound good?"

Hermione nodded.

"It's better to be doing something than just sitting here and fretting." she said.

"Miss Suze, perhaps you could assist Flame-Eye and I in a similar manner?" Snape suggested.

"... yes. Yes." Suze said, lurching to her feet and irritably swiping at her eyes; she had clearly-delineated tear tracks down her face. "I'll do that."

The potions' master nodded gravely. Hermione could tell that he'd got the same idea as Grindbone – since she'd really known him she'd been able to tell he was struggling to conceal how much he liked Suze, and the more her mind was kept off of fretting over Harry the better.

-/- Small fragmentation; Harry is now on the road to recovery, and Hermione takes the time to ask the goblins some questions -/-

"What sort of profit does Gringotts make each year?" Hermione suddenly asked.

Grindbone blinked, then chuckled. "I shouldn't really be telling you this, ma'am, but it's about two and a half billion Galleons."

You could see the gears whirring in Hermione's head for a long moment, and then her eyes bugged out as she got the idea;

"Wait, what, that's fifty pounds to a Galleon and Harry's -" She swallowed violently. "You're saying he's earned you people over two billion pounds in the last year!"

"You've seen his gilded bed." the goblin said. "That is composed of about half of his share dividends and interest over the last four years."

"... my God, how much is he worth?"

"Sorry, ma'am, but that comes under client confidentiality. That said, I'm allowed to tell you that Mr Potter is one of the three most affluent clients Gringotts has ever served – and the other two are his business partners." Grindbone angled a thumb over his shoulder at the chunky assault rifle he had slung on his back. "Let's just say, on the change from those three's transaction fees the Goblin Nation are going from thirty-year-old half-worn-out SLR's and Lee-Enfields older than your grandparents to brand-new top-of-the-line gear like the H and K G36 rifle I've got here – and there are two and a half million battle-ready gobs in this world."

-/- Slight fragmentation; these two scenes should run together as Hermione continues asking questions of goblins -/-

A huge and immensely toothy grin immediately spread itself Slackhammer's face.

"Well, Miss Granger," he said, "It just so happens that young Mr. Potter has a quite distinctive and most pleasing scent that all goblins are easily able to detect."

"Really? What's he smell like?" Hermione asked.

"Profit." the rotund goblin stated.

"... uh."

"Gringotts is after all a merchant bank." Slackhammer continued. "And, like all banks, we are investors in people, Miss Granger. When an entrepreneur has a product, we are eager to ensure that said product arrives at a profitable market, for a modest share of said profits of course. A deal where everyone wins is good for business, and things that are good for business are good for Gringotts. As it so happens, Mr. Potter and his business partner Mr. Snape have a product, and there are well-funded people eager to use that product. Of course, we charge a modest fee for currency conversion such as pounds or, more to the point, US dollars, to Galleons or, further to that point, gold bullion."

-/- Slight fragmentation; Harry recovers -/-

"Harry James Potter," the potions' master snarled, "If you ever do anything even half as foolish again, I shall never forgive you! Is that quite clear?"

"... huh?" Harry was obviously decidedly confused.

"I gather you ate my Philosopher's Stone?" Nick checked.

"Um, is that a sort of part of a someone who says he's Moldevorts?"

"... I beg your pardon?"

"Well this dude with no nose turned up, right, and he said he was that Moldevorts twit only he can't have been because when I splat stuff it stays splatted. And he kinda threw a whole load of those killity curse thingies at me – they really sting, y'know – so I got kinda angry and, well, ate him. He came outta the other end as some sort of a ghost and, er, I kinda started feeling real weird and- hey, why's my nose changed colour?"

-/- Slight fragmentation as everyone gets what happened straight; these two scenes should run together.

"I'm, uh, sorry about eating your stone, Nick." Harry said, sounding contrite. "I, well, I guess it was sorta inside that Mouldy-whatsisface creep."

"Oh, it's quite alright, no great loss; they're easy enough to reproduce once you know how." Nick said, waving it off. "That said, I do believe you owe me five hundred and twelve Galleons, six Sickles, and a knut, to pay for ingredients for a replacement."

"... well, I guess that's fair enough."

-/- Fragmentation; the professors have discovered that the ley-line node at Yellowstone in the USA is in grave danger of exploding. Harry decides he wants some backup if he's visiting a strange foreign country -/-

"Ah, Mr Potter, come in, do." Mr Slackhammer said, rising to his feet. "It is a pleasure to see you in good health once more, my young friend; how might I be of assistance this fine day?"

-/- Minor fragmentation; Hooktalon's platoon volunteer to accompany Harry and his party to the U.S. Harry raises the subject of guns that're handier to tote around than the Lee-Enfield; he speaks to Hooktalon on this subject -/-

Sergeant-Major Hooktalon frowned thoughtfully.

"Well son," he mused, "With your ability to soak up recoil I reckon we'd better be getting something just a little bit extra special for you, hey? There's a bloke I know the other side of the pond, human ex-squaddie called Ed Becerra, damn fine gunsmith – he'll sort something out for you for the right price!"

-/- Fragmentation; preparations are made to travel abroad without the MoM knowing about it -/-

It was, Hermione mused as they walked through the departure gate and down into the gangway that'd take them aboard the jetliner, rather weird seeing the Hogwarts Professors dressed in clothes that weren't robes, especially considering that their mode of dress wasn't what she'd have expected from any of them.

(She definitely hadn't figured Flitwick as a Rolling Stones fan.)

Minerva McGonagall, for example, was wearing a hand-knit jumper patterned in greys and russety browns, and a long skirt of similar character, all in a style vaguely familiar from the time Hermione had visited Orkney with her parents, while Albus Dumbledore was done up like a Victorian dandy, complete with a purple velvet smoking jacket and ebony cane.

The only one who hadn't given her a surprise was Snape, who'd traded in his usual black robes for a very similar black cashmere trenchcoat, Harry, and the pair of disguised goblins in their khaki battledress.

For his part, Harry was wearing his usual hanging-around-his-lair sort of clothes; a utility vest (likely stuffed full of bits and pieces) denim jeans with the knees out, combat boots, and a black T-shirt emblazoned with 'Here be Dragons' in somewhat wobbly Tipex handwriting.

But the weirdest bit was knowing Suze and a selection of firearms were travelling with them, in shrunken trunks concealed within the lockets carried by Harry and the due of disguised goblins.

("Remind me again," Snape had queried as they were about to head for the airport, "Why we are travelling by muggle means?"

"Because the Ministry and the Colonial Department do not need to know what we're doing and definitely do not need to know Steven exists." Dumbledore had gently reminded.)

Man, she wasn't even thirteen yet – she was too young to be involved in smuggling guns, centaurs and heavily-armed goblins onto aircraft, especially when they were all travelling by forged passport!

"Are you quite sure this contraption's safe?" Sinestra dubiously asked as they seated themselves.

"Definitely." Harry said. "They make jet planes out of really good metal, it tastes delicious, and anyway if anything does go wrong we've all got our emergency portkeys."

"Ixnay on the ortkey-pay. Wretched reptile."

"There are hundreds," Dumbledore said, "Possibly thousands, of these machines in operation at any one time and accidents are quite unusual."

-/- Fragmentation; the group road-trips to Yellowstone in the Humvee owned by Dumbledore's contact, stopping off at Hooktalon's gunsmith contact's place -/-

Time was when Ed's odder customers raised eyebrows down the firing range; he still remembered the first time a goblin had turned up.

How times change; now nobody batted an eyelid at Hooktalon, and though the centaur girl got some odd looks they were quickly shaken off soon as folks realised she was with Ed.

He knew what they were thinking; 'Oh, them's with Ed, they'll just be folks'.

More odd looks were directed their way when the kid started working his way through the assortment of guns Ed had brought, as the shooters and firearms buffs realized that this kid was taking a lot more recoil than anyone his size by all rights could, and then people started getting enthusiastic, especially as they realized that the kid, though not Olympic-level by any stretch, was a pretty good shot.

He nearly said something when Buck Forrest – a Vietnam vet, truck driver, and borderline member of the aluminum-foil-under-hat brigade – after seeing the kid with a .357, unlimbered his Colt Anaconda and offered the kid a try.

Ed considered the kid for a long moment, and momentarily wondered if he was dreaming.

Had this little kid really just soaked up the kick from everything up to and including a forty-four Magnum without so much as twitching an elbow?

Hell, in the kid's hands that Colt Anaconda had looked like it kicked like an anemic baby; he'd never seen anyone successfully fire a forty-four with one hand and never mind hitting the target (and getting a nice tight shot cluster) while doing so. The ideas began to flow; just how hot can you load anyway?

Maybe it was time to find out.

"Kid," he said, "How strong are you?"

"He can lift me, over his head, with one arm, and it doesn't take him sweat." the pretty centaur helpfully provided. She was smiling at the kid with that particular sort of a proud smile that makes a feller reckon that lady'll go all mama-bear if someone messes with her kid.

"Iff'n I've got someplace hard enough to stand throwing a Land-Rover's easy." the kid added, a big hopeful smile on his face as he demonstrated his ability to lift the smiling centaur with one arm. "Lorries are a bit harder but that's coz they kinda seem to go all wobbly."

Ed considered that, considered the kid, considered the centaur.

She was built like a brick shit-house; petite her human parts might be, but the rest of her was a solid slab of honed muscle. She must weigh as much as a compact car.

Yeah, Hooktalon was right. Something special...

-/- As prescribed by the RL Ed, something in .45-70 Government; make and model taken from a firearms recognition manual I own -/-

"Century Arms Model .45-70.

-/- Further fragmentation; Ed having sold Harry the big Century Arms and some very special silver bullets, the road-trip resumes. Arriving at the centre of the Yellowstone nexus, they have a surprise encounter -/-

"Ha! Still got it." an unexpected voice with a completely unplaceable accent declared. "About time you kids showed up."

Whirling round, the group found a very memorable man leaning against the Humvee.

"And who," Dumbledore asked, "Might you be?"

"That'd be telling, wouldn't it?" He was tall and slender, with blood-red hair, green eyes, very noticeably pointy ears, and a black diamond-shape painted around his left eye; he was dressed vaguely like a stereotypical cowbow. "I'd been wondering who bled off the Avebury nexus."

"That'd be me." Harry stated.

"What the frag did you do that for, kid?"

"It," Dumbledore stated, endeavouring to gain control of a conversation he'd never been in control of, "Was a fortunate accident."

"Fortunate? You're either crazy, a fool, or you know something I don't. Probably not the latter. Whatever you people think you're playing at, either you've no idea of the ramifications or you're being manipulated by something that should not exist; those nexii were constructed to drive – and keep – the Horrors out of the world. The longer they stay closed, the better."

"And the longer they stay closed, the bigger the explosion when they burst." Harry stated, glaring back.

"What?"

"Are you familiar with arithmancy and thaumatic physics, whoever you are?" Sinestra asked.

The man raised an eyebrow in a markedly Snape-like way; she handed him a copy of their calculations.

"Parts of this are in Nick Flamel's handwriting, I'd know it anywhere." the man remarked, dubiously contemplating the notes. "Hmm. Powerful release. Explosive?"

"Have you ever heard of Krakatoa?" Hermione asked.

"Volcano. Big one. Nexus?"

"Indeed." Snape confirmed.

"... frag. Rock and a hard place, huh?" The man handed the notes back to Sinestra. "Yeah, I'll see you kids around. Just remember, you'll be helping me clear up the mess that'll come with the magic being let back into the world and if you don't, you'll wish you had."

With that, the man abruptly vanished.

"... my word." Dumbledore said, removing and cleaning his spectacles.

"What now?" Snape sighed.

"That was not Apparation, or the activation of a portkey. That was whatever methodology house-elves use to get around."

-/- Scene runs on to a successful node-draining exercise and cuts to... -/-

Somewhere hundreds of miles away, in a well-hidden place, an immense eye opened and flicked around, quickly examining it's surroundings.

"There it is again," an incredibly deep voice rumbled, in a rolling language that hadn't been heard anywhere else in thousands of years, "What in the Hells is causing that abominable racket?"

A few moments passed without reply before the owner of the eye dismissed the peculiar feeling with a swift shake of his titanic head, and went back to sleep.

He was still far too exhausted to worry about earth-shaking bangs, but he was beginning to believe that they had some significance – and, he noted, he was not quite as tired as the last time.


End file.
